Guest Author - Hope Evey

So I sat down to play a few hands of Gin Rummy with a friend. This should have been a simple thing. I dealt out seven cards, picked up my hand, then realized she was looking at my like I'd just swallowed a toad. "Aren't you going to finish dealing?" she asked me. Then it was my turn to look at her funny. There were enough differences between how she played Gin Rummy and how I played it that we were nearly talking about two different games.

This is why, before I sit down to play a game that "everybody" knows, I make a point to make sure we're actually talking about the same game! In the instance above, the game I knew was simpler, so that's what we played, and that's what I'll describe here.

Players: 2
Decks: one standard 52 card pack

One player deals 7 cards to each player, sets the rest of the deck face down between the players and flips one card face up to make the waste pile. The other player goes first.

On each player's turn, that player will draw one card from either the top of the deck, or the top of the waste pile, then discard any card. If the player drew the top card of the discard pile, he may not discard the card he drew.

The goal is to group cards either by matching value or in sequences. Once all your cards are grouped, you call "gin" and win!

There are many, many, MANY, variations and complexities of this and other rummy games. But this version is the most basic way to play that I know of. In future articles, I'll explore some of those variations. Feel free to surf over to the forum and share how you learned to play rummy!