Shuffle a standard 52-card deck
Deal 10 cards to each player
Turn up 1 card to start the discard pile
Keep the remaining cards as the draw pile
Objective: score by forming sets (melds) of 3+ cards in a valid Gin Rummy combination and reduce unmatched cards (deadwood) in your hand
On your turn, take either:
The top card from the draw pile
The top card from the discard pile
After drawing, you may lay down melds (optional until you “knock” or “gin,” depending on your strategy)
Discard exactly 1 card to the discard pile
Meld rules (to lay down sets):
Runs: 3+ cards of the same suit in consecutive rank (A-2-3 allowed)
Sets: 3 or 4 cards of the same rank
Knocking:
You may knock when your total deadwood is 10 or less
After knocking, you stop drawing and the opponent gets one final turn to lay down their melds
Gin:
If you have no deadwood when you go out, you have “gin”
You may declare gin instead of knocking
Ending the round:
After the opponent finishes laying down melds, compare deadwood totals
If the opponent has 10 or fewer deadwood and beats your knock, you are “undercut” and the opponent scores accordingly
If you have gin, you score gin value and the opponent scores 0 for deadwood
Scoring (typical values):
Number cards (2–10): face value
J, Q, K: 10 points each
A: 1 point
Gin: you score a bonus plus your opponent’s deadwood total
Knock: you score the difference between your deadwood and the opponent’s deadwood (plus any standard bonus if applicable)
Undercut: opponent scores for the undercut plus bonuses as per the rule set
Play continues until someone reaches the target score (commonly 100)
Winner is the player with the highest total score