Gin might be compared to a game of heads up poker, without all of the time spent shuffling cards for a hand that starts off with "I fold". Two opponents are pitted against one another using their knowledge of the game, their ability to read plays, and pick up tells on their opponents to triumph.

Having played the game as a kid, I'm walking back into the world of Gin as a complete fish. In fact, I had to read over the rules of the game at Red Hot Rummy before signing up at the site because I wasn't sure I even remembered the basics.

It turns out I didn't.

But, they have free play, and there's no download, and I was honestly interested in playing. It was just like my first game of poker, the software did half the work for me. I welcomed the guidance, and soon after starting, I was winning regularly at the free tables. And that, was fun.

If you've never played Gin before, Gin Player Online.com is the best of the gin rummy resources I've found.

Rules of Gin Rummy

Gin Rummy is a two player game, played with a standard deck of 52 cards. Each player recieves 10 cards to start the game. One card is placed face up in the "open pile", and the rest of the deck is placed face down as the "stock pile".

Players try to turn the cards in their hands into "melds", which are either:

• a set of three or four cards of the same rank
• a run of at least three cards in order, and of the same suit

So, 3c, 4h, 5h is not a meld. 3c, 4c, 5c is a meld.

Each card has a point value. Aces are worth one, number cards are worth their rank, and face cards are worth 10.

Players take turns picking up a card from either of the piles, and then discarding onto the open pile, while trying to create their melds. The round ends when someone "knocks".

Any card inside of a meld has no point values, only the unmelded cards, called "deadwood" have point values. Once you reduce your deadwood cards to a value of 10 or less, you can knock, signalling the end of the hand. So, gin rummy is like golf in that sense, the less points you have in your hand, the better.

Scoring for Gin Rummy

Once someone knocks the scores are tallied. A couple of things can happen here.

1. The player knocks with 0 points in their hand. That's called a "Gin". Whoever gets Gin receives a bonus of 25 points right off the bat. They also get credit for all of the deadwood points in their opponents hand. That's a lot of points potential.

2. The player who knocks will most likely not have Gin. If a player knocks with points in their hand, they lay their hand down on the table and declare the number of points they have. The other player then has a chance to "lay off". Laying off is looking for cards in your hand that may fit the your opponents melds.

For instance, I knock with 8 points. One of my melds is Jc, Jd, Jh. You have a loose Js as part of your deadwood. That Js fits with my meld of Jacks, so you may "lay it off" on my meld. You take it out of your hand, and remove it from your deadwood cards.

After all the cards are layed off, you tally both players points.

If the player knocking still has less points, they score the difference between the two totals. So, if I knock with 5 points, and after laying off, you have 15 points in your hand, I recevie 10 points on the scorecard.

If the player knocking has more points, the player with less points is said to have "undercut" him. The undercutting players gets a 25 point bonus for doing that. Plus, they get the difference in points between the hands.

So, if I knock with 10, and after laying off you have 8, here is what you would get. A 25 point bonus for undercutting me, plus the difference between 10 and 8, which is two more points, for a total of 27 points for the round.

Reviews of Card Rooms that Deal Gin Online

I'm reviewing the various online card rooms that deal gin, beginning with Red Hot Rummy.

This page was last updated on October 16th, 2006.