Casino Articles: Gin Rummy

History of Gin Rummy
Gin rummy is a popular and exciting card game with easy rules but lots of depths in its strategic subtleties. Its history is unclear but exciting.

Some say that the Rummy games came to the US from Mexico, possibly after a detour to England. Other sources have it that Rummy was invented in Texas and then spread to Mexico.

Mexico, France or China
Others still claim that Rummy is a descendant to poker, a card game that came to North America with French settlers, much like the popular card game of Blackjack. Rummy certainly shares the concept of straights, trips and quads with poker.

Possibly the most reliable theory says that Rummy stems from Chinese card games. Its similarity to classic Chinese games like Domino and Mahjong seems to support this hypothesis.

In any case, its origins apparently go as far back as the 18th century. Of course, through the decades Rummy games have changed shape countless times. Today still, an almost endless number of Rummy variations seem to be played regularly around the world.

Endless number of Rummy variations
Among the variations played today we find games like Kaluki, Three Thirteen, Proter, Loba, Umtali, Rummikub, Conquian, Pitty Pat, M, Push, Telefunken, Carousel, Tonk, Contract Rummy and many more.

Today, the most popular variations probably are Canasta, Panguingue and Gin Rummy. The games are being played around kitchen tables in large part of the world, but also in card rooms and online casinos, together with games like online roulette and online craps.

Gin Rummy belongs to the class of Rummy games called Knock Games, meaning you can go out without having formed groups of all your cards. The player with the smallest least “deadwood” wins.

This feature makes Gin Rummy a fast and tricky game. Without the need to achieve the last 10% of card collecting, 90% of the time can be saved. Gin Rummy is a game with a lot of room for psychology and shrewdness

No one could beat Stu Ungar
Possibly the best Gin Rummy player ever was Stu Ungar, a New York card genius most famous for taking down three championship titles in the World Series of Poker (alongside a number of other poker titles.) It’s widely held that his strongest game was Gin Rummy.

Still a teenager, Ungar had already demolished all opposition in the world of high stakes Gin Rummy. In his matches against the world’s finest players, Ungar was so superior that soon enough no one would play him anymore.

Ungar himself modestly claimed that no one would ever be able to play the game as well as he did, and reading about his astonishing accomplishments, it’s hard not to agree.

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