Straight Gin is Gin Rummy stripped to its essence: knocking is not allowed, so the only way to end a hand is to go gin — meld all ten of your cards. It rewards patience and clean building and punishes hoarding high cards. Play it free here against the computer.
How Straight Gin works
Everything is standard Gin Rummy — ten-card hands, draw and discard, sets and runs — except you can never knock on a small deadwood total. You keep playing until one player melds their whole hand and goes gin, taking the deadwood of the other player plus the gin bonus. Because there is no early exit, every hand runs longer and the pressure to keep improving never lets up.
Straight Gin strategy
Favour cards with the most connections and be ruthless about shedding isolated high cards early — they are dead weight you can never knock away. Since both players are chasing gin, tempo matters: don't feed the discard pile cards your opponent obviously needs. If you enjoy the all-or-nothing feel, try Oklahoma Gin on a low upcard, which plays much the same way, or go back to the classic Gin Rummy.