The pick is the next phase of the opening play. This confronts the dealer who now has the opportunity to pick either his opponents discard or a card from the deck. There are two questions the dealer must ask upon seeing his opponent’s discard:

• Do you need the card or should it be left alone?
• Why did the opponent make this particular discard?

The discard from your opponent tells you something about the hand. Depending on the type of player you are up against, it tells you what he considers to be a safe card, or what he is not accumulating. If your opponent is primarily in an aggressive player, you need to consider that he is throwing a card that is not only completely useless to him, but he could be throwing a salesman card. You must be on guard for both of these discards.

The dealer, who has 10 cards to his opponent’s 11 cards, has certain advantages and disadvantages on his first turn of play. If the discard is picked, the dealer has the...

Dealt: K♠, Q♣, 10♦, 9♣, 8♠, 7♥, 6♣, 5♦, 4♠, 3♦, A♥
Knock: 8♦

This hand is shown to better explain the opening hand discards and to see how a beginner, good, and expert player would make their discard selection. It is the opening hand of the set and therefore it should be played to be won.

This is the kind of hand that at first glance appears to be a losing hand. If it is to be won though, this hand is going to take an inordinate amount of time to develop the melds. You need to give a thought to all the possibilities, and there are many to consider.

Beginner Player – As usual, the beginner will throw the highest, most useless card in their hand. In this case, it is the K♠.

Good Player – This type of player will note that the only combination in his hand that offers any offensive possibility is the 3♦, and 5♦. While it is a one-way combination, the good player does have the option of throwing the 4♠, which...

Dealt: K♥, Q♣, Q♦, 10♥, 7♣, 6♣, 6♥, 5♠, 4♠, 2♣, A♦
Knock: 8♦

This hand is shown to better explain the opening hand discards and to see how a beginner, good, and expert player would make their discard selection. It is the opening hand of the set and therefore it should be played to be won.

Beginner Player – The beginner would most likely throw the K♥ since it appears to him to be the highest and most useless card in the hand.

Good Player – This player will realize that although there are no melds in the hand, there are three good combinations which could result in melds and a possible early win. Thus playing the hand for its offensive possibilities, he would generally decide to discard the K♥.

Expert Player – After analyzing his cards, and bases his decision on the law of possibilities, he will look at this hand offensively rather than defensively. Since he is playing for an 8 point knock, he will first decide...

Dealt: J♣, 10♣, 9♣, K♦, Q♠, 8♥, 8♦, 4♠, 2♣, A♥, A♠
Knock: 8♦

This hand is shown to better explain the opening hand discards and to see how a beginner, good, and expert player would make their discard selection. It is the opening hand of the set and therefore it should be played to be won.

This is a very average hand in an opening deal hand. This means, that it happens often, but isn’t necessarily a great hand, nor is it a particularly bad hand.

Beginner Player – This type of player would almost always discard the K♦ because it is both the highest card, as well as the most useless card.

Good Player – This player would usually recognize that this hand could be won very quickly just by picking the black eight. The first discard should be the K♦ in this case as well.

Expert player – The expert would also discard the K♦, but he would have analyzed the hand completely differently. In this hand, when...

Dealt: K♦, Q♦, 10♥, 10♦, 9♦, 8♣, 7♦, 6♠, 4♦, 3♦, A♠
Knock: 8♦

This hand is shown to better explain the opening hand discards and to see how a beginner, good, and expert player would make their discard selection. It is the opening hand of the set and therefore it should be played to be won.

This hand represents the most common type of hand that many places face when they are dealt a hand. There is an abnormally high point count in the hand, and it is a hand that you certainly don’t want to lose very early on in the play. There are good opportunities for development of the hand if you are fortunate enough to pick specific cards from the deck before the opponent completes his hand. This is a hand that has to be played on the answers to many questions. Such as, if we should play for the quickest win, if the hand should be played to prevent our opponent from winning before we have a chance to develop our hand, or if we should find a happy...

Dealt: K♥, J♥, 10♥, 9♥, 6♥, 6♠, 6♦, 7♦, 10♦, 8♣, A♠
Knock: 8♦

This hand is shown to better explain the opening hand discards and to see how a beginner, good, and expert player would make their discard selection. It is the opening hand of the set and therefore it should be played to be won.

The above hand is to most people an obviously winning hand, and it should be played for a quick knock. Although an 8 knock hand is normally won by achieving six or seven melded cards and either three or four small cards that add up to eight or less. In this hand however it is conceivable that it could be knocked with just one pick, by drawing a Q♥. This card would give eight melded cards because of the 5-card sequence. Knowing that, you need to decide what you would discard giving thought to all the possibilities.

Beginner Player – The normal reaction of the beginner would be to throw the highest card in their hand that has no particular...

This is something that happens more often then you may think. It is when you are dealt a hand in which every card in the hand is combined in some way with another card. What do you do with this type of hand?

You should start by realizing that this hand cannot be opened up with any defensive pattern, and therefore defense should not even be considered. That means that it should be played only in an offensive manner. You need to take advantage of those combinations which offer the greatest possibilities. At the same time, the discards at the start of play should not consist of breaking combinations that could be used in conjunction with any other combination in the hand. However, if you are looking for a middle card to fill the hand, you should not hold two combinations of the middle card zone. If your opponent is induced to throw into one of them for your pick, he will certainly not throw a second card in the same middle zone. Therefore, your prospective melds should be...

The strategy of early discards is very important. It should be based primarily on whether your play is to be offensive or defensive at that particular moment. It also is pure strategy to decide to what extent you should play, either offensively or defensively.

On the few occasions that you are dealt an extremely good hand and you need only one or two favorable picks to enable you to knock, you should play much more aggressively when you are discarding. Caution shouldn’t even be part of your play at that point. You expect to win the hand, and you should discard so you can leave yourself the maximum number of chances to win as quickly as possible. Selection of the safest card should be secondary.

However, if your hand is considered to be poor, or if the conditions call for defensive play, then your discard should be the safest card in your hand. If your hand basically has given you no hope of winning whatsoever, you have to try to play to the wall or lower your...

When discarding, even on the first play, it is so important to not only consider just the discard that you are making now, but the discard you will make for the next two to three plays after that. The card that you discard will either enable you to have at least one or two more discards or it should leave you the opportunity to lay off provided your opponent knocks. It should not be allowed to tie up any other card you may have been holding with it. Essentially, the first discard you make can make or break your game.

Many players have a tendency to consider rank more than anything as we have said before. If you have a lone King with no other King, Queen, or even a Jack to go with it, then that thought process is understandable, but when you stay with discarding only the highest rank of card first, then you are never going to be a winner at the game of gin rummy.

It is important to keep in mind that low card discards also have a major advantage. If that card is picked,...

Discards are often used as salesmen throughout the game of gin rummy. A salesman is a card that is discarded when you want you opponent to give you another one of the same denomination.

For instance, if you are holding the Q ♦, and the J ♦, the throw of a K ♠ (in this case, the salesman) will tell your opponent that you are not saving kings and it will frequently induce him to throw the K ♦ if he has it. This works because there is a natural tendency for a player to match a previous discard rather than throw a random card.

There are many ramifications to discarding a salesman. If your opponent picks up the salesman, it becomes highly probably that the card you want has become part of a spread, and you will never get it. Let’s look at the above cards. If your opponent took the K ♠, you then wouldn’t know if it was for the kings or a spade sequence. If it is for the kings, then you holding onto the Q ♦ and J ♦ would become worthless. If you know...

If you have been dealt to, then you will be the person who is making the first play. The first play consists of discarding one card from the 11 in your hand, because remember the first person gets dealt 11 cards rather than 10. In the game of gin rummy, many of the hands are won or lost in the first few plays, meaning, the card you discard can make or break you.

If you believe that the higher strategy in gin begins in the middle of the game, after each player has started to develop his or her hand, you are already at a disadvantage. The first play of the hand is when you can get an advantage over your player, and can essentially last for the duration of the entire hand. Therefore, to advance towards the expert class you must master the opening play discarding strategy.

Discards serve several purposes throughout the game, but especially in the first play of the game. They reduce the count of your hand by the face value of the discard. Except for rare cases, an...