Gin Rummy
2-5 Players
One deck excluding Jokers
Set up
Shuffle the cards and deal every player seven cards each. Then place the deck in the centre and turn the top card over and place it next to the deck to start the discard pile.
How to play
The player left of the dealer starts, on your turn you can choose to either pick up a card from the deck or the top card from the discard pile. You must then discard a card so you only ever have seven cards in your hand. If you pick up a card from the deck you can discard it straight away, you do not have to swap it for a card in your hand.
The aim of this game is to make sets so you can flop all you cards down at once and call out "gin" to win. A set is a minimum of three cards, they can be a three/four of a kind such as three queens, or you can have a run. In a run the cards must be the same suit and they must go up in sequence e.g. two, three, four. Also in Gin rummy Aces are low so they can only be used in runs as ones, therefore queen king ace would not be allowed.
Here is an example of a wining hand, a combination of a three of a kind and a four card run. Some things to remember while playing, since you can only pick up the top card from the discard pile, a card you are looking for may no longer be available. This would be a good time to swap out cards and start looking to form new sets. However, just because a card has been discarded it does not mean you will not have a chance to pick it up, as if you get through all the cards in the deck you flip the discard pile over and this become the new deck, so old cards you are looking for may come back around.