If he/she does not need the upcard either, the non-dealing player starts the game by taking a card from the stock.

If he/she chooses not to, then this option passes to the other player, the dealer. The non-dealing player can take the upcard and play first. The game starts with each player arranging his or her hand. What is left of the deck (thirty-one cards) forms the stock and is placed face down beside the upcard. After twenty cards have been dealt to both players, the next card, the twenty-first, known as the upcard, is turned face-up and starts the discard pile, which is placed in a central location. Each player is dealt a ten-card hand, one at a time.

The turn to deal alternates from round to round. As far as dealing is concerned, the first dealer is chosen randomly, although standard gin rummy rules say that players have top cut the deck, and let the low card deal. The sum of points of deadwood cards is called deadwood count, and is calculated according to the values presented above. All the cards that are not in any meld are referred to as deadwood. It is not allowed to intersect melds, meaning that if a set and a run share a common card, only one of them will be counted as a meld, and the rest of the cards in the other meld are deadwood. The sets are formed of three or four cards of the same rank. The runs refer to several cards in sequence, typically more than three, and all of the same suit. There are two types of melds, runs and sets.

Gin and rummy card game rules