Looking for a quick rules summary while playing? This gin rummy cheat sheet gives you all the essential rules on one printable page: card values, melds, knock thresholds, layoffs, and scoring bonuses.
Setup & turns
Use one 52-card deck, no jokers. Deal 10 cards each; turn one card face up as the discard pile and leave the rest face down as stock.
Opening: non-dealer may take the face-up card; if they pass, dealer may take it. If both pass, non-dealer draws from stock.
Each normal turn: draw from stock or the top discard, then discard one card. You have 11 cards after drawing and 10 after discarding. You cannot immediately discard the card you just took from the discard pile.
Melds & deadwood
Set: 3 or 4 cards of one rank. Run: 3 or more consecutive cards of one suit. Aces are low (A–2–3, never Q–K–A). Each card belongs to only one meld. Keep melds in your hand until the hand ends.
Deadwood: cards outside melds. Ace = 1; 2–10 = face value; J/Q/K = 10 each. Melded cards = 0.
Ending & scoring a hand
| Ending | What happens |
|---|---|
| Knock | Declare as you discard, leaving at most 10 deadwood. Reveal both hands. Defender forms melds, then may lay off unmatched cards onto the knocker’s melds. If the knocker’s deadwood is lower, knocker scores the difference. |
| Undercut | If defender’s deadwood after layoffs is equal to or below knocker’s, defender scores the difference plus the agreed undercut bonus. A tie still earns the bonus. |
| Gin | All 10 remaining cards are melded. Gin player scores opponent’s deadwood plus the agreed gin bonus. No defender layoffs. |
| Stock exhausted | Common rules end the hand without points when only two stock cards remain and nobody has knocked or gone gin. |
Example: you knock with 2; defender has 19 after layoffs. You score 19 − 2 = 17. If you knock with 8 and defender has 5, defender scores 3 + the undercut bonus.
Agree before starting
Bonus values and end-of-match scoring vary. Our browser game uses 25 for gin, 25 for undercut, first to 100, then adds 25 per hand won and a 100-point winner bonus (200 for a shutout). Traditional tables may use 20 for gin and 10 for undercut, plus game or box bonuses.
Further reading: Full rules · Worked scoring examples · Layoffs and knocking
Rules sources: Bicycle Cards and Pagat. learnginrummy.com/gin-rummy-reference