Who invented gin rummy?
Elwood T. Baker, a Brooklyn whist teacher, developed gin rummy around 1910. His son, C. Graham Baker, supplied the name.
By 1914, the game had appeared as “poker gin” in a Hoyle, a card-game reference book.
Gin also had ancestors. Conquian and earlier forms of rummy already used drawing, discarding, and matching cards; gin’s distinctive pleasure comes from keeping your combinations hidden until the hand ends.
For that difference in practice, see the gin rummy rules: your opponent sees what you take and throw away, but must work out what you keep.
Why is it called gin rummy?
The name is a drinks joke. The older game was called Rum; Graham Baker chose Gin, another spirit, for the new version.
The game also went by Gin Poker and Poker Gin in its early years.
The Depression and the wartime boom
A deck of cards offered repeat entertainment at little expense during the Depression. Gin needed only two people, and its brief hands fitted an evening at home as readily as a break at work.
Hollywood made gin rummy a national craze. Actors played between takes, and newspaper columns brought their games to the public. In May 1941, performers on Columbia’s Texas were playing gin off set.
Gin’s great American fad ran from 1941 to 1946, through World War II and its immediate aftermath. The craze was underway before the United States entered the war.
Players could fit a short hand into a break, then carry the score forward over several hands.
Four stories from the table
Read more about the players and writers who brought gin to a wider audience.
After the craze: poker takes the spotlight
Poker drew players away from competitive gin. By 1999, gin tournaments were struggling to recruit new entrants.
High-stakes gin survived, with a $100,000 first prize at one tournament that year. Country clubs and kitchen tables kept their own games going.
Gin rummy in the computer age
Electronic entertainment gave people more ways to spend their time, but it also gave gin new tables. A computer opponent solves the old two-player problem: finding somebody free to play.
The game has become a research problem, too. Gettysburg College’s 2020–21 undergraduate AI challenge drew 14 teams studying decisions such as discarding, knocking, and estimating an opponent’s hand.
To play, start with a worked guide, explore Oklahoma, Hollywood, and other variations, or try a free game against Gus.
Sources and further reading
- “Gin Rummy,” The New Yorker, August 23, 1941 print issue.
- David Parlett, “Gin Rummy”. Historical analysis quoting the 1952 Culbertson’s Card Games Complete.
- Jimmie Fidler’s May 19, 1941 Hollywood column, reproduced by the historical newspaper blog L.A. Daily Mirror.
- Michael Konik, “The Gin Mill,” March/April 1999. Reporting on tournament gin and its changing audience.
- John McLeod, Pagat’s Gin Rummy; Todd Neller, Gettysburg College’s Gin Rummy AI challenge.