Point System

As you may know, the objective of each round is to declare your winning hand with as few dead wood cards (if any) as possible. There are three possible ways of declaring your winning round:

1. Knock (15 base points) – where one or more cards in your hand do not form melds provided that the total face value of those cards is 10 or less.
2. Gin (25 base points) – where all 10 cards in your hand form part of a meld.
3. Big Gin (35 base points) – where all 10 cards in your hand plus a further card that is drawn form part of a meld.

and while not technically a win, a player can score 25 base points by undercutting (more on this later).

In addition to the base points, the winning player is awarded points based on the difference between any deadwood held by the two players.

For “going Gin”, winning by Gin and Big Gin, the winning player does not hold any deadwood. Therefore the winning player is awarded the additional points calculated by adding the accumulated total of the opponent’s deadwood to the winning player’s base points.

For “going Down”, winning by Knocking, the knocking player holds deadwood. The knocking player is awarded the difference between the winning player’s deadwood and the opponent’s deadwood (after the opponent has laid off any cards onto the knocking player’s melds).

Example: Player A goes down and has 5 deadwood while Player B has 13 deadwood. 13 minus 5 is 8. Player A therefore scores 15 base points plus 8 additional points totalling 23 points

False Win is where the knocking player has more deadwood than the opponent.

Example: Player A goes down and has 7 deadwood while Player B has 5 deadwood. Player A has more deadwood than Player B. Therefore Player B scores 25 points plus the difference between the deadwood (7 minus 5 is 2). Therefore Player B scores a total of 27 points.