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How to play gin rummy

Gin rummy is a card game for two. Each player holds ten cards and, turn by turn, draws one and throws one away, trying to sort the hand into sets and runs. When your leftover cards add up to 10 points or less you can knock to end the hand, and the player with less left over scores the difference. The first to 100 points wins.

By Emre Özen, updated October 8, 2026. These are the rules our free online gin rummy game uses. They follow the Gin Rummy page on pagat.com, checked against Bicycle's rules.

What you need

One standard 52-card deck with no jokers, two players, and a pencil and paper for the score. Aces are low: A-2-3 is a run, but Q-K-A isn't.

Card	Counts as deadwood
Ace	1
2 to 10	Its number
Jack, queen, king	10

Sets, runs and deadwood

The aim is to put your cards into melds. There are two kinds:

A set is three or four cards of the same rank, like 9♠ 9♥ 9♣.
A run is three or more cards of the same suit in order, like 4♦ 5♦ 6♦ 7♦.

Any card that isn't in a meld is deadwood, and the total of your deadwood is what counts against you. Each card can only be in one meld at a time. With 7♥ 8♥ 9♥ 7♠ 7♣, the 7♥ can finish the run or the set of sevens, but not both. Pick the run and the leftovers are 7♠ 7♣ (14); pick the set and they're 8♥ 9♥ (17). Our game always picks the arrangement that leaves the least, and our gin rummy deadwood calculator does the same for any hand you type in.

Who deals, and the deal

Each player draws a card from the shuffled deck. Pagat's rule is that the lower card deals first. (Bicycle's page says the higher card deals; either works, as long as you agree.)
The dealer gives ten cards to each player, one at a time.
The 21st card goes face up to start the discard pile. That first card is the upcard. The rest of the deck goes face down next to it as the stock.
After that, the winner of each hand deals the next one.

The first turn: the upcard

The first turn works a little differently from the rest:

The player who didn't deal decides first: take the upcard, or pass.
If they pass, the dealer can take it or pass.
If both pass, the non-dealer draws the top card of the stock instead.

Whoever took a card then discards one, and play goes to the other player. Taking the upcard tells the other player something about your hand, so only take it when it really helps.

A normal turn

Every turn after that has two steps:

Draw. Take the top card of the stock (unseen) or the top card of the discard pile (which everyone has seen).
Discard. Put one card face up on the discard pile. If you took the top discard this turn, you must throw a different card. You can throw a card you picked up on an earlier turn.

You always end your turn with ten cards.

Knocking and gin

Right after you draw, if your deadwood without one card adds up to 10 or less, you can knock. Throw that one card face down and lay your hand out, sorted into melds and deadwood. You can knock on any turn, including the first, but you never have to.

If you knock with no deadwood at all, every card in a meld, that's gin.

Laying off

After a knock, the other player (the defender) lays out their own melds too. Then they can lay off deadwood on the knocker's melds: a fourth card on a set of three, or cards that extend a run at either end, one after another. If the knocker has 6♣ 7♣ 8♣ and you hold 9♣ and 10♣, both go on. Laid-off cards no longer count as deadwood.

You can't lay off after gin.
The knocker never lays off on the defender's melds.
Cards can't be laid off on deadwood to make a new meld.

Scoring a hand

What happened	Who scores	Points
Knock, and the knocker has less deadwood	Knocker	The difference
Knock, and the defender has the same or less (an undercut)	Defender	The difference plus 10
Gin	Knocker	20 plus the defender's deadwood (no layoffs)
Stock down to two cards and nobody knocks	Nobody	0; the same dealer deals again

Say you knock with 4 and the defender ends up with 19 after laying off: you score 15. If the defender had 4 or less, it's an undercut, and they'd score the difference plus 10. A gin player can't be undercut. The gin rummy scoring page works through more examples.

When the stock runs low

The hand also ends when the stock is down to two cards. If the player who took the third-last card discards without knocking, the hand is cancelled: no score, and the same dealer deals again.

Winning the game

Keep a running total for each player. The game ends as soon as someone reaches 100 points or more. Then add the bonuses:

Bonus	Points
Game bonus, to the player who reached 100	100
Shutout: the loser didn't score at all	200 instead of 100
Box (or line) bonus, to each player, for every hand they won	20 a hand

The box bonuses don't count toward reaching 100. They're added at the end, and the final difference is the margin of the win (the amount the loser pays, if you're playing for stakes). Our game adds all of this up for you on the last screen.

Words you'll hear

Meld: A set or a run.
Set: Three or four cards of the same rank.
Run: Three or more cards in a row in one suit, ace low.
Deadwood: Cards not in a meld, and their point total.
Upcard: The first face-up card at the start of a hand.
Stock: The face-down pile you draw from.
Knock: Ending the hand with 10 or less deadwood.
Gin: Knocking with no deadwood at all.
Lay off: Adding your deadwood to the knocker's melds.
Undercut: When the defender ties or beats the knocker's count. Worth a 10-point bonus.
Box or line bonus: 20 points at the end of the game for each hand won.
Shutout: Winning a game when the other player scored nothing.

Common variations

Oklahoma gin: the upcard's value is the most deadwood you can knock with (pictures count 10), a spade upcard doubles the score for that hand, and the game is usually to 150. Some play that an ace upcard means you can only go gin. Our game has Oklahoma gin as a setting, with the ace counting 1.
Bigger bonuses: 25 for gin and 20 for an undercut, or 25 for gin, undercut and every box.
Who deals next: some play that the loser of a hand deals, others simply take turns.
Eleven-card start: the non-dealer gets 11 cards, no upcard is turned, and the non-dealer starts by discarding.
Shutout doubling: some double the winner's whole score after a shutout, not just the game bonus.
Three or four players: pagat describes a three-player game where the dealer sits out, and a four-player partnership game to 125.

Ready? Deal a game of gin rummy against the computer, or read our gin rummy strategy first.

Sources

John McLeod, "Gin Rummy", pagat.com: the rules above, the stock-of-two rule, the bonuses and the variations, including Oklahoma gin.
Bicycle Playing Cards, "Gin Rummy", bicyclecards.com: card values, the upcard, knocking at 10, undercuts and the end-of-game bonuses.