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2009

Gin Rummy > Gin Rummy Strategy

Gin Rummy Strategy

Much like poker, Gin Rummy is complex enough that your abaility to win will increase with experience. In longer matches, your luck should increase and decrease in much the same way as your opponents and thus cancel out. Winning at Gin Rummy is alot to do with your skill with the cards.

The Basics
Get your deadwood count down as fast as you can by:

Building sets and runs into melds.
Get rid of high deadwood first.
Knock as soon as you can.

Advanced Gin Rummy Tips

1. Middle ranking cards are far more useful than low cards or face cards as there are more opportunities to build sets and runs.
2. You have the highest probability of making a score with a 7 than any other card in the deck.
3. Aces, although they are not expensive deadwood, can only build a run with a 2-3 combination. You can´t build a Ace high run.
4. Remember that your opposite number can knock lower and get an undercut. This happens more frequently when the game is coming down to the bottom of the pile.
5. Mid way through the pile, decide whether to knock or "go for gin" based on how many undrawn cards could give you gin on the next draw, which could be zero (you know the other person holds all the gin cards or they are in the discard pile) or up to five or thereabouts.
6. Hold onto high cards for as long as you dare at the start of the game to allow you to build points up if your opponent panics and starts throwing his or hers away. But beware- hold on to them too long and you move into expensive territory.
7. At the same time, if you always discard high cards early, your opponent may follow suit or pick up on your style of play. Mix it up a bit and keep your opponent guessing. Vary the cards that you throw away.
8. Manage your hand in a way that does not reveal your its contents. When drawing a card from the stock, Rummy Pros put that card randomly in their hands, close their cards, reopen them and only then pick out something to throw away. In this way, you are almost shuffling your hand in front of your opponent to keep him or her guessing. Your opponent will not know if you are discarding the card that you just picked up from the stock or a card you have had in your hand for a while.