Gin Rummy

Gin Rummy is a two-player card game where the goal is to build your hand into melds. A meld is either three or four cards of the same rank, or three or more cards in a row in the same suit. Cards not in a meld are called deadwood. You want your deadwood count low. When it's 10 or less, you can knock to end the hand. If your deadwood is zero, that's gin.

Each turn you draw a card from the stock or the discard pile, then throw one card away. The real game is reading what your opponent picks up and puts down. You're trying to piece together their hand while building your own and keeping your options open. Games go across several hands to a target score.

Gin Rummy was invented in 1909 by Elwood T. Baker, a Brooklyn whist teacher, and his son C. Graham Baker. They cut down an older game called Conquian into a fast two-player format. The name riffed on Rum, an older card game the Bakers had adapted.

It exploded in the 1930s and 1940s, especially in Hollywood. Actors played it between takes on long shooting days. The game became the two-handed card game of choice in studios and card rooms. It's stayed popular ever since as a clean, fast head-to-head game.