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Add-on - A card knowingly and deliberately discarded to an opponent who needs it to add to an existing meld.

Boxes – Extra awards of 25 points each, given for a knock, gin, gin-off, or roodles

Bonus Box – The added score for winning a hand (box), usually worth 25 points.

Captain – One player playing against two who alternate in their play against him, or two players playing against three, or three playing against four.

Combination – Two cards of the same rank or consecutive in the same suit.

Count – The point value in any given hand after deducting the total melded cards.

Cut - After the shuffle, to separate the deck into packets and change their order.

Deal – To distribute cards to the players.

Discard – After picking, to reduce the hand to ten cards...

There are also methods of cheating called “coffee-housing” or ungentlemanly conduct. These methods tend to take advantage of factors not ordinarily considered proper in playing to win any gin rummy game. The term emanated from the back rooms of many coffee houses in Austria and Hungary where the most disreputable characters got together to play cards back many years ago. Their conduct while playing cards was so ungentlemanly that they were not permitted to play cards anywhere else. Most clubs and tournaments nowadays consider coffee-housing out and out cheating. Although it is called ungentlemanly conduct, there has been an influx of women who are also considered to display this kind of behavior at the card tables around the world. Any player using these methods is not accepted into any card clubs or tournaments.

Most people consider there to be a very thin line between cheating and coffee-housing. Most people believe that taking any undue advantage is definitely...

In addition to be cheated in play by an opponent, you can also be cheated by outsiders or people who observe your hand and inform your opponent’s of what you are holding. Furthermore, there can also be a conspiracy among players in a partnership game.

Obviously, you can protect yourself against the first type of cheaters by not letting anyone observe your hand or the hand of your partner. Unfortunately, in higher staked games, this does not protect you completely, since there have been reported cases of observers using high powered binoculars to read the cards and then the person using the binoculars will alert your opponent of what you have.

Outsiders though also work in other more subtle ways. They may come up to you as a “stranger” and after watching the game for a relatively long period of time, suddenly want to bet with you or against your hand. You may see this as a side bet, but then they pull up a chair next to you and you find yourself strangely losing...

The money card is another place where a dishonest scorekeeper can cheat. The money card is employed to keep track of the winnings and losing of each player in the game. If the players in the session do not examine the money card carefully at the end of each game, a dishonest scorekeeper can at any time put a winning score in a losing column or a losing score in a winning column.

While doing this, he can reverse his own two balances to balance it off. Trying to remember something that happened two or three hours before so that they can ascertain whether a game was entered correctly is an impossible task. If the money card is kept in pencil, a dishonest scorekeeper can go back at any time and reverse figures that were written in the two or three hours earlier. A player that does not check the money card at the end of each game would have no way of protecting himself against this, and one reversal of any figure on this card could cost him a great amount of money. Since...

The most obvious protection against incorrect score keeping is for each team to have their own scorekeeper, or failing this, to have the opposing team double check all of the scoring, not only at the completion of the game, but at the end of each hand. In gin rummy, it must be remembered that the scorekeeper, even though a member of a playing team, has no obligation whatsoever as to the accuracy of the information that he gives regarding counts. For instance, if his opponent were to ask during the play of a hand what his safe count is and the scorekeeper replies 14 and the player later brings his down to 13 points and after losing his hand by that count finds that the scorekeeper gave him the wrong count, it is no ones responsibility but his own. The scorekeeper is not responsible for this misinformation. A dishonest scorekeeper could deliberately misinform his opponent for the purpose of keeping him over the count. The only protection against this is to ask for the scores yourself...

There is one particular type of cheating which, although it has no bearing on the actual play of a hand, can be very costly. This is cheating on the part of the scorekeeper. The person who does this as a scorekeeper will usually keep a fair score of tabulation until the score gets too close for comfort. Then such a cheat will resort to one of the following. They will either miscount the number of boxes at the completion of the game and then continuing on either up or down, depending on whether the scorekeeper’s side has won or lost the game or they will add incorrectly either high or lower. They can also add or eliminate a number of boxes when scoring, or incorrectly write the appropriate score when a hand has been completed, adjusting it either upwards or downwards. Last but not least, they can indirectly misinform the other players as to the counts.

For example, a sheet shows a four-handed partnership game with all three games having been won by Team A on a schneid....

A person who has a counterfeit meld or count rarely does so on purpose, and most of the time it was an accident and he truly believe in what he had.

For example, a player declaring gin puts down a hand which he believes is the correct hand, such as:

3♠, 3♣, 3♥, 7♠, 7♦, 7♥, 10♦, J♦, Q♦, K♦

However instead of the Q♦, the player has a Q♥. The error was an accident and he honestly believed he had a gin hand. Although again, it is rare, it does happen. Unfortunately such situations are at times deliberate, even so far as to have the Q♥ laying in such a manner that everything is covered except the red Queen. Your only protection in either case is a careful examination of your opponent’s hands when laid down.

In a partnership game, the partners also have the privilege of examining your opponent’s hand and calling attention to any discrepancies. Keep in mind that, in a singles game, a hand is considered dead once the loser has...

It is true that on occasion a player may, accidentally, have an extra card in his hand. For instance, he may have been dealt 11 or 12 cards in error. He may have picked a card from the stock and forgot to discard, or sometimes two cards may be stuck together. In such cases, the rules of gin rummy specifically state that if either player’s hand is discovered to have an incorrect number of cards before that player has made his first draw, there must be a new deal.

After the first draw however, if it is discovered that both players have incorrect hands, there must be a new deal. But if one player’s hand is incorrect and the other player’s hand is correct, the player holding the proper number of cards has the option of either having a new deal or continuing play. If play continues, the player with the incorrect hand must correct his hand by discarding without drawing or by drawing without discarding, and may not knock until his next regular turn to play. That is, if one...

Card manipulation is another technique that a cheater may employ in the game of gin rummy. It is relatively easy for someone to do with the proper amount of practice and perfection.

For example, it is considered to be card manipulation if after a hand has been played, as the cheater scoops the cards to himself after the previous hand has been finished, he can leave an entire meld on the bottom of the pack. He gives the pack a little shuffle so as not to disturb these bottom cards. Most of the time, no matter how the deck is cut, this four-card meld will be together and in the course of the deal or play, each of the players will receive two of the four cards. Since the cheater now knows two of the cards in your hand, he of course, will be able to play around them until you either break your pair or he utilizes his two cards in other melds. Your best protection against this or other types of stacking the deck is to shuffle the cards thoroughly when they are given to you to...

No matter how skilled you are or may become in the game of gin rummy, you stand no chance against dishonesty. Granted, there are certain specific rules of the game that, if followed, give you a certain level of protection against cheating. There are other procedures that if used consistently will give you even more protection. The most important thing is to know that you have the utmost confidence in the integrity of everyone in the game. There are times, especially when the stakes increase, the temptation to be dishonest grows. There are certain people who will take that dishonest advantage for the sole purpose of winning and satisfying their own egos. It is important to be on guard for both the person who is trying to win for money, as well as simply winning for pride.

Mechanical cheating is one of the ways to cheat. The items that are used by professional card cheats include shiners, embossing devices and marked cards. All of these are most effective in Gin, as in any...