Gin Rummy: Oklahoma
How to play Gin Rummy (Oklahoma)
Gin Rummy is a card game for two players in which you form your cards into sets and runs and try to end the hand, by knocking or going gin, before your opponent does.
The upcard sets the knock limit, and a spade upcard doubles the hand. Played to 150 points.
About Gin Rummy (Oklahoma)
In Oklahoma the upcard turned at each deal sets the knock limit for that hand: its value, with jacks, queens and kings counting 10. When the upcard is an ace, only gin or big gin can end the hand.
When the upcard is a spade, every point of that hand is doubled, bonuses included. The game is played to 150 points.
Look at the upcard before you plan the hand. With a low limit, build towards gin rather than keeping high cards you hope to knock with. When a ten or a face card is turned, the limit is 10, as in the classic game.
The limit stays fixed for the whole hand, even after someone takes the upcard. The computer player knocks as soon as the limit allows, so when a high card is turned, expect a short hand and get rid of high deadwood early.
On a spade hand an undercut is doubled too: the other player scores 50 plus twice the difference, so knocking close to the limit risks twice as much. A gin on a spade hand is worth at least 50 points, a third of the way to 150.
Each rank comes up as the upcard about one deal in thirteen, so roughly one hand in four is a spade hand with doubled points, about one in thirteen is an ace hand that only gin can end, and almost a third have the full limit of 10, from a ten, jack, queen or king. Every other hand has a limit from 2 to 9, lower than in the classic game.
The goal of Gin Rummy
Gin Rummy is a card game for two players, and here you play against one computer player. In each hand you try to form your cards into melds and bring down the points left over, and to end the hand before your opponent does.
How to set up Gin Rummy
Gin Rummy uses a 52-card deck. The first dealer is chosen at random, and after that the deal alternates. Each player is dealt 10 cards, one at a time, starting with the player who is not dealing.
The next card is turned face up to start the discard pile; this card is the upcard. The other 31 cards are placed face down as the stock.
Gin Rummy rules
A meld is a set or a run. A set is three or four cards of the same rank. A run is three or more cards in sequence in one suit. Ace is always low, so A-2-3 is a run but Q-K-A is not. A card can belong to only one meld.
Deadwood is every card that is not in a meld. Aces count 1, twos to tens count their face value, and jacks, queens and kings count 10 each.
Each hand opens with the upcard. The player who did not deal may take it or pass, and if they pass, the dealer may take it or pass. Whoever takes it then discards. If both pass, the player who did not deal starts by drawing from the stock.
On each turn you take the top card of the stock or the top card of the discard pile, then discard one card face up. You may not discard the card you just took from the discard pile.
Instead of an ordinary discard you may knock when the deadwood left in your ten cards is no more than the knock limit, which is 10 in the classic game: you discard and the hand ends. Knocking with no deadwood at all is gin. If all eleven of your cards form melds after you take a card, you can declare big gin without discarding. You may knock on your very first turn.
You never have to arrange your cards yourself. When a hand ends, both hands are laid out in the melds that leave the least deadwood.
After a knock, the other player lays off deadwood onto the knocker's melds: a fourth card on a set of three, or the next card at either end of a run, one after another. Layoffs are also made for you, in the way that leaves the least deadwood. Nothing can be laid off after gin or big gin.
Once only two cards are left in the stock, a player who discards without knocking ends the hand, and it is void. Nobody scores, and the same dealer deals again.
The full Gin Rummy guide, with strategy tips and common questions