Since gin rummy is a game of percentages and odds, an expert player takes advantage of any odds that favor him. However, there is no rule of thumb in the game that is so rigid that you must adhere to it regardless of any other circumstances. If so, there would be no real skill in playing the game. You would only need to learn the rules and then follow them 100%. The only rule that should be given any degree of rigidity is to always take full advantage of the odds that favor you. Despite all the knowledge of the score and the count, these things are relative and are based on and dependent on the various situations as they exist at any given time. A situation may occur, for instance, where the hand at a given moment is most favorable to you, but this favoritism may be completely destroyed by attempting to play for a count.

For example, you are dealt the following card with the knock being a 7♣:
A♠, A♥, A♣, Q♦, J♦, 10♦, 10♠, J♠, 8♦, 3♦

You...

It cannot be stressed enough the importance of keeping under count. That means you need to reduce the point total in your hand so that even if your opponent should go gin, your total point count will be low enough so that he will not win the game. Just being aware of the necessity of keeping under the count will improve your chances of winning by 25% to 33%. Except for expert play, observations show that every third or fourth final hand of the game is lost because of the avoidable failure to keep under count.

Let us suppose that we have gotten to the point where we have seven melded cards are sitting with a three picture-card combination, which is of course, a count of 30 points. Our problem is not to win the hand, but to get under a count. The count that we have to get under may be any number, under 10, 13, 14, 23, or 24. What are the possibilities then of our getting under these various counts without ginning our opponent?

First of all we have to decide if in...

One major factor that separates the expert from the good player is the ability to “beat the price”. This means that every single play in every hand from the first card to the last card has a specific probability of success or failure. These probabilities are weighed by the expert against the odds for or against him. Then, in each case, he makes the play that is indicated to be in his favor considering the probable outcome of the play.

The expert also differs from the good player in going beyond the ordinary percentages in involved in any given play. That is, the expert measures this percentage against the advantages and disadvantages to him on every ply of the hand. In fact, this is possibly the most significant difference between the ordinary, everyday gin rummy player and the expert. It is called “money management” which is a term that is used in reference to dice, roulette, blackjack, or any other form of gambling. This type of player who takes full advantage...

Using the safety factor point count system should be done in order to win the game obviously, but more so it should be utilized to help you figure out which card to discard so that it will benefit only you. Throwing the correct or the “right” discard will not always prove to be the winning play, because there is always the element of luck involved in any given hand. However, the right discard will win a much higher percentage of hands than will any other play. If followed, this system will provide the correct choice of discard for any given defensive or offensive situation. The decision as to whether or not to make a play for its defensive or offensive value is solely at the discretion of the player, based on all the other factors that must go into making this decision.

An example of a hand that emphasizes all of these problems at the same time would be a six-melded hand together with a combination of the J♣, J♦, Q♦, plus the 6♣ with no known factors relating...

This safety factor point count system that was previously described can be used to your advantage not only for proper defense, but also to enable you to determine your opponent’s holdings.

For example, if you know that your opponent is predominately a defensive player, then you can be sure that he will never throw a card, even in the early stages of the game that has a safety factor of five or six. In the middle stages of the game he will never throw a card that has a safety factor of three or four, and in the late stages of the game will never throw a card that does not have the safety factors of one or zero. The middle-of-the-road or aggressive player will disregard the safety factors of his discards in the early stages of the game. In the middle stages, he will generally throw cards of even a five or six safety ranking in order to play his most offensive opportunities. The aggressive player will even take calculated risks in the late stages of the game, by throwing...

The calculations mentioned in the mathematic and odds article are gin mathematical problems and solutions, but they are not of great strategic value to the player in the game. In gin rummy every play requires a decision that could, if carried to the extreme, be based on a pure mathematical formula. Every card has certain offensive benefits if retained as well as having certain defensive detriments if throw. These benefits and detriments can be reevaluated by considerations given to score and count.

The point count system that we will explain below was developed with an eye towards helping the gin player make the correct decisions during play. It is based primarily on establishing a defensive value for every card based on the number of ways that this card can be used by an opponent. Without any knowledge of either discards or your own, every Ace or King can be used in any one of four ways. Every Queen and Deuce can be used in five ways. Every other card in the deck from...

When gin rummy became really popular in the 1970’s, there were some players who decided to do a little computer work on the actual mathematics and odds of gin rummy. They are extremely interesting, albeit rather unimportant. However it does give you an idea of the possible hands and odds during the game.

For instance, there are 15,820,024,220 possible ten-card hands in gin rummy. The non-dealer, who receives an eleven-card hand, has the possibilities increased to 60,403,728,840 different hands. After the deal, the combinations and permutations for either hand must be based on 41 cards. Actually each player can start with one hand out of a separate total of 1,471,442,973. After the cards have been dealt, the number of possible hand-against-hand combinations climbs to a whopping 2,165,144,422,791,078,729! Therefore, to give the probabilities and odds of each of the various possibilities in gin rummy would be an exercise in futility and of little value to the player in...

Before you give full consideration to the offensive or defensive play of your hand, you have one other thing to consider. It is called the condition of the score. At any given time you need to be sure that you are playing correctly considering what the score is.

For instance, if a player has already scored on two of the three games, while his opponent has not and on the third hand he wins 20 points, he will receive those 20 points on each of the three games. In the final scoring of the game, since the third game is doubled, the 20 points will be equivalent to 40. Thus, the player has gained a grand total of 80 points in the three game columns plus a box, worth 25 points, in each column. The 20 points in the third game then yields the player a grand total of 180 points. If his opponent were to win the same 20 points, it would be scored only in one game, and with the 25 point value for the box, he would only gain 45 points.

Also, since the opponent is still on a...

As you know by now, at the deal, a hand may be considered a winning or losing one. If it is a winning type of hand, you should play it in an offensive manner, but if it is a losing hand it should be played with consideration to the defensive value of each discard until the hand changes. The expert player is one who can recognize immediately the changing value of his hand, and can adjust his strategy accordingly.

One of the most important strategic plays in gin is establishing certain cards for your opponent to throw, and holding combinations that can utilize the card that your opponent has been “encouraged” to throw. For example, you have a choice of breaking a 3, 4, combination or a 7, 8 combination and you know only that your opponent is holding a 7, 8, and 9 of a different suit. A good defensive layer would be more likely to throw the 9 that you need, since it would be thrown from a duplicated card in his own hand rather than a 2 or a 5 which he does not have matched...