Review of Gin Rummy How to Play and Win
- Title:
- Gin Rummy How to Play and Win
- Author:
- Sam Fry
- Publisher:
- Dover Publishing
- Date:
- 1978
- ISBN:
- 0-486-23630-7
- Pages:
- 59
- Price:
- $2.95
May 5, 2001
A lot of people play Gin Rummy, or at least a lot of people play a game
they call Gin Rummy. Few people play it well, and many don't even realize
that it's a game that requires significant skill to be a consistent
winner. Sam Fry's book aims to provide enough information for the
novice player to understand the issues involved in being a winning
player, and to provide the rules and suggested strategy changes for
most of the common Gin variants.
Gin Rummy How to Play and Win is obviously not a magnum
opus. It's a small book published by Dover Publishing that originally
appeared as a series in a periodical in the early 1960s. Dover's
publication strategy is to acquire works in the public domain or
buy the rights to out of print material at rock bottom prices and
and turn them into high quality, low price press runs
for niche markets. This allows Dover to print Fry's work at a very
low price. Basically, as long as the information in a book like this
doesn't harm the reader, it has to provide a reasonable value for
the purchaser.
As it turns out, the information provided in this book won't do the
reader any harm. In fact, although brief, it provides a pretty decent
introduction on how to be a winning Gin player. The rules
as stated here are generally in agreement with rules as I've seen
them elsewhere, and, in fact, Fry discusses them in more detail than
you'll find, say, in Hoyle's Rules of Games. Also, the
Gin variants are discussed in reasonable detail. I had to re-read
the section on Oklahoma Gin to make sure it did indeed agree with
my recollection, so it could have been written in a clearer fashion,
but it's certainly good enough.
As one might expect, although the strategy sections are sound, they're
pretty limited and general. If the book were to be expanded,
covering more strategic situations would be the obvious way to go.
However, the basics of winning strategy are present, so that an
industrious student can work out more detailed rules of optimal
play once they have some game experience.
All in all, I have no quarrels whatsoever with this book. It does its
job in a reasonable footprint at a reasonable price. Advanced players
can almost certainly pass it by, but at worst, even a player who
was on the fence about purchasing this book can hardly begrudge Dover
the three bucks it would cost to find out if it provides them
valuable information or not.
Capsule:
Fry's book is a brief, solid, and very reasonably priced introduction
to the game of Gin Rummy and most of its variants. While Gin
Rummy How to Play and Win isn't the final word in Gin strategy,
it's a solid book for those who are not already experts in this game.
I recommend it.
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