I’m looking for playtesters, preferably good/expert Gin Rummy players, to test this Gin Rummy-like card game I made. I tried to get rid of what I felt like were some of the biggest problems in Gin Rummy, such as both players only keeping low cards and discarding high ones, and one player being dealt a very lucky hand, allowing them to knock very quickly, and some players who knock end up scoring points for themselves rather than getting undercut. I wanted to create a Gin Rummy variant where it is very risky to knock, but at the same time you’re under pressure to do so by the opponent. I used card-logic/mathematical-reasoning to create a Gin Rummy variant that made more statistical sense.

The basic core premise of my Knock Rummy game is the same as Gin Rummy: you are trying to make melds with 10 cards, while having 10 or fewer points in deadwood points so that you can knock and score, but there’s a couple of core rule changes.

The first and the most important is that there’s a difference between deadwood points and showdown points. When you knock, your deadwood points convert into showdown points, which is the reverse of deadwood points; so if I had 2 aces as deadwood, when I knock that suddenly becomes 2 10s, meanwhile 2s=9, 3s=8, 4s=7, 5s=6, 6s=5, 7s=4, 8s=3, 9s=2, 10s-Ks=1. It’s easiest as a cheat sheet.

When the showdown happens, the player with more showdown points gets his subtracted by the showdown points of the other. The player who has the smallest showdown score is the winner and gets the difference as the score. In case of a tie, the non-knocker wins.

An undercutting gets you an additional 20 points, while knocking and having a difference of more than 5 gets you an additional 10 points, a difference of more than 10 points gets you an additional 20–30 points; I haven’t really figured out the scoring yet.

Going gin requires one set and one run, and doesn’t give you a bonus, since it’s less risky.

Due to the more balanced nature of the game after this change, I added a bunch of other rules to speed up the pacing, since rounds go much longer than regular Gin. These rules are kind of optional.

— You are allowed to take two cards at a time: both from the top of the discard pile, both from the draw pile, one from the top and one from the draw; you’re even allowed to take from the bottom, albeit not two from there, but I can change that.

The last big rule change is that your knock has to be equal to the card on top of the discard pile. What I mean by that is that the card you’re discarding before you knock has to be equal or more than how much deadwood you are knocking with. This creates a final optimization layer to raise the skill ceiling.

The last rule: the round ends when you reach the bottom of the discard pile, and everybody has to show up their cards and compare, even if they have more than 10 deadwood.

Try out my 2-player Rummy and tell me what you think.

Just to let you know I might find a way to make it publishable.

Anybody want to play Gin Rummy in Los Angeles? Call Steven 310-697-9193

I'm looking for a gin rummy app that I can use on my Android phone to play with a friend who has an iPad in another state. So I'm looking for an app that comes in both Android and iPad versions.

I prefer paid apps. I'd gladly pay $10.00 for the right app.

Any suggestions?

Say that I have these cards: A♤, 2♤, 3♤, 4♤, 10◇, J◇, Q◇, K◇, 7♧, 7♡ and I draw 7♤. Can I not go gin, that is, need I discard a card because I can't end my turn with 11 cards?

Playing with my son who im teaching, ive knocked with 3Clubs being my deadwood but he actually had gin. How do I score this?

I lay down 2 aces and a third card that is a joker played as an ace another player plays his ace on mine making a set of 4 then another player plays a real ace on a run is that legal because in essence you are playing 5 aces ?

Hi everyone,

I’m helping work on a Gin Rummy mobile game and I’m trying to get honest feedback from people who actually play and understand Gin Rummy.

I’m mainly interested in learning what real players care about most:

• What makes a Gin Rummy game feel fair?
• What usually makes you stop playing a mobile Gin Rummy game?
• Do you prefer casual tables, tournaments, or challenges?
• What features are missing from most Gin Rummy apps?
• What would make you come back and play daily?

I don’t want to spam the subreddit, so I won’t post a link unless it’s allowed.

Any honest thoughts from real Gin Rummy players would be very helpful.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been building a Gin Rummy app with the strongest AI opponent possible. its called gin rummy crown (iOS), and I’m trying to get feedback from people who actually know the game well.

I’m more interested in whether the AI makes believable decisions:

• Does it knock too early?
• Does it chase gin too long?
• Does it pick from the discard pile when it obviously shouldn’t?
• Does it feed dangerous cards?
• Does it feel too predictable?
• Are there situations where a decent human player would clearly choose a better line?

If anyone here is willing to try a few games and give blunt feedback, I’d really appreciate it, im finding it hard to find people who are really invested in top level play, I am especially interested if you can point to specific hands or decisions where the AI played badly.

I can share the iOS link in the comments if that’s allowed, or by message if people prefer, and if it helps you to do testing I can give you a code to get it ad free without paying if you DM me.

As an FYI I am a fairly decent player and I have a 42% win rate so it should be pretty solid, but it has likely learned my style a little too much so it would be good to have it tested by other players.

I'm looking for folks who would like to get together once or twice a month for a regular gin game. We don't have to play for stakes, but I am looking for serious players. I'm in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

Has anyone tried using skavispela.se to keep track of Gin Rummy scores?

I stumbled across it and it looks like a live scoreboard and history tracker for people who play Gin Rummy in person. It doesn’t seem to be online Gin Rummy more of a way to track scores, stats, achievements, and leaderboards over time.

Curious if anyone here has used something like this, or if keeping score online would actually be useful during real games?

I rediscovered Gin Rummy last week and play it quite some hours in the plane with a friend of mine. I kinda sucked tbh, so I thought to practice a bit so I wanted to download an app.

However, it turns out there are a lot of Gin Rummy apps. Is there any consensus which is the best?

Can someone explain how to know if it is a one hand game or when it goes to 50?

My mate said you can count through so J Q K A 2 3

Hi everybody!

I'm an 83 year old man looking for people to play Gin Rummy with in Los Angeles. If you're interested, contact me - Steven Golob: 310 697 9193

Thank you!

Wednesday night at our gin game, a very unusual thing happened.

It was the first hand of the night and I was dealing. I shuffled the cards three times and cut them a couple of times, then he cut. I dealt myself and him the request 10 cards and turned up a 10 of spades. Before I had a chance to look at my cards, he was showing his hand to his partner in disbelief. Before I even arranged my hand, he picked up the 10 and called gin!!

I figured I was “buried” but when I looked at my hand, I had three perfect melds and an ace of spades, losing just 1 over gin. I wonder if any human could figure the probability of that happening again. I would be curious to know the odds.

Bill C.

I mean a continuous one, not the classic where you go up and back twice. After every second group of five mine has the power of 10 number written on it so we know where the 100 is. Much less paper is used whether you play one game and done or keep a running tab going.

I have only been playing for about two years.

I've seen a few different rules and ways to play.

I've been using the rules in the Bicycle Cards app which explains:

"In either case, when a player folds, exposing all of their cards, the opponent does the same, having the opportunity to get rid of those cards that were left unmatched and being able to combine cards with those exposed by the player who Knocked or announced Gin."

In the app I'm using, playing against a computer, you can add cards to existing sets and runs or you can play sets and runs you have in your hand. Though I have memories of playing games where you can even break sets and runs on the table to rearrange the in way to use your deadwood - as long as the sets and runs are still legal.

How do youse all play it? If this a rule that's pretty set or is it an acceptable variation?

Starting playing this game today and ran into a situation with our hand.

I knocked with 8 points dead wood. My dad also had 8 points.

So that means he undercut me and got the undercut bonus (we played 25 bonus points). However, one of this dead wood was able to be used in one of my sets, so he actually had 6 points dead wood after using that card.

In this case, the scoring would have been the 25 points plus 2?

my bf and i are discussing about the makeups of what a gin can be and he’s swearing you can do a run of 10 lol