Gin Rummy Scoring
Every point you score is the gap between two hands. Knowing the gap is the game.
Play Gin Rummy freeGin Rummy does not score cards you win — it scores the difference between what the two players have left over. Understanding that one idea makes the whole scoring system obvious, including why holding a King is expensive and why an undercut hurts so much.
Deadwood — the number everything rests on
Deadwood is the cards left in your hand that are not part of any meld. A meld is three or more of a kind, or three or more in sequence in the same suit. Everything else counts against you:
| Card | Deadwood value |
|---|---|
| Ace | 1 |
| 2 through 10 | face value |
| Jack, Queen, King | 10 each |
So a hand holding K♥ 8♣ 3♠ outside its melds carries 10 + 8 + 3 = 21 deadwood. This is why players shed high cards early even when they look promising: an unmelded King is ten points of pure liability.
Knocking and the four outcomes
You may knock when your deadwood is 10 or less. You discard face down, lay out your melds, and your opponent then lays off — attaching their own deadwood to your melds where it fits, which lowers their count. Then the two counts are compared.
| Result | Score |
|---|---|
| Knock — your deadwood is lower | the difference |
| Undercut — opponent equals or beats your count | opponent scores the difference + 25 |
| Gin — knock with zero deadwood | +25 plus their full deadwood |
| Big gin — all 11 cards meld before discarding | +31 plus their deadwood |
Two details decide a lot of hands. Gin allows no lay-offs — the opponent is stuck with every unmelded card. And an undercut needs only a tie: equalling the knocker's count is enough to take the 25.
Worked examples
An ordinary knock. You knock with 6 deadwood. Your opponent lays off two cards and is left with 18.
You score 18 − 6 = 12.
An undercut. You knock with 9 deadwood. Your opponent lays off three cards onto your melds and gets down to 7.
They score (9 − 7) + 25 = 27 — and you score nothing. This is the danger of knocking at 9 or 10 against an opponent who has been drawing well.
Gin. You go gin with 0 deadwood. Your opponent holds 14, and may not lay any of it off.
You score 25 + 14 = 39.
Box bonuses and the end of the game
Hands accumulate until a player reaches 100 points. Then the bonuses are added:
- Box bonus (line bonus) — 25 points for every hand you won, added at the end. A player who won six small hands can overtake one who won three large ones.
- Shutout (skunk) — some tables double the winner's total if the loser scored zero all game.
The box bonus is the reason the game is not simply about maximising each hand. Six knocks worth 8 points each is 48 in play plus 150 in boxes; two gins worth 35 each is 70 in play plus 50 in boxes. Winning often beats winning big.
Knock early, or hold for gin?
The whole soul of Gin Rummy is this one decision, and the scoring answers it differently depending on when you are asked.
- Knock early when you get to 10 or less in the first few draws. Your opponent has had no time to organise, their deadwood is high, and the undercut risk is minimal.
- Do not knock at 8–10 late in a hand. By then the opponent is usually low too, and the undercut is a 25-point swing against you. Either get lower or go for gin.
- Hold for gin when your deadwood is one useful draw from zero and you hold a card the opponent clearly wants.
- Watch what they take from the discard pile. Every card they draw face-up tells you which melds they are building — and which of your cards you must never discard.
- Near 100, count their score. If a small knock ends the game, take it. Elegance is worth nothing after the last hand.
Keep reading
- How to Play Gin Rummy — the complete rules.
- Gin Rummy Strategy — drawing, discarding and reading a hand.
- Gin Rummy Variants — Oklahoma, Hollywood, Straight Gin.