Daily Gin Rummy

The date creates one reproducible hand identity

Daily Gin Rummy converts the selected local date into a deterministic seed. That seed fixes the initial shuffle, dealer position and computer tie-break choices. It does not predetermine the winner. Once play begins, your decision to take the upcard, draw from stock, keep a card, discard a card or knock changes the hand tree. Returning to the same date therefore means returning to the same starting contract, not replaying a scripted animation.

The opening offer remains part of Daily play

The non-dealer sees the first upcard before the dealer. If the non-dealer passes, the dealer can take or pass. If both decline it, the non-dealer must draw from stock. Daily mode does not skip this small but meaningful decision just to make the session faster. The date-stable hand uses exactly the same opening state machine as Practice and Match to 100.

Daily deadwood is calculated by the full meld optimizer

Sets and suited runs can overlap in ways that make a greedy grouping wrong. The engine therefore evaluates non-overlapping meld combinations and selects the arrangement with the least deadwood. The number shown beside the board is the result of that exact analysis. Aces count one, number cards count face value and face cards count ten.

You still choose when to knock

Reaching ten or fewer deadwood points only unlocks the option. Daily mode does not automatically knock for you because that would remove one of the core strategic choices. You can accept the current hand and knock, or continue in hopes of Gin or a safer margin. If you use Hint to make that decision, the Daily hand becomes Assisted.

Gin and undercut scoring are identical to Practice

Gin means zero deadwood and scores a 25-point bonus plus the opponent’s deadwood, with no defender layoffs. On a normal knock, the defender may lay deadwood onto the knocker’s legal melds. If the defender then has deadwood no higher than the knocker, the defender undercuts and receives 25 points plus the difference. Daily does not use a simplified score just for streak purposes.

The computer sees only public information

The date does not grant the computer hidden knowledge. Its decision function receives its own cards, public discard information, stock count, score, dealer and observed face-up pickups. It does not receive your hand or the unseen stock order. The same public-state boundary is checked by the independent V0.96 verifier.

Autosave stores the exact in-progress decision state

Leaving in the middle of a Daily hand stores both ten-card hands internally, the remaining stock, discard pile, turn, draw/discard phase, dealer, scores, assistance label and result state. Only your own cards are rendered visibly, but the full local state is required to resume the deterministic browser session exactly. The old version’s serialized store remains untouched during migration.

A completed date remains completed when reopened

Once the hand ends by knock, Gin, undercut or the two-card stock boundary, the completed Daily state is written back to the specialist autosave. Reopening the same date restores that result instead of silently starting a fresh hand. This completion persistence is part of browser QA because earlier specialist releases showed how easy it is to lose a finished state if autosave is cleared too aggressively.

The Daily streak belongs only to Gin Rummy

Finishing a date writes an entry into `ginRummyStats.daily.history` and advances the Gin Rummy specialist streak when dates are consecutive. It does not modify the frozen Today’s 6 `days` state. The main six-slot lineup therefore stays exactly as it was before this specialist existed.

Daily history records facts, not a fake rating

The browser can remember whether you won, how many points the hand scored, whether the result was Gin or an undercut, the resulting match-style score and whether the hand remained Clean. Those are observable local facts. The page does not turn them into a global percentile, multiplayer Elo or invented rank because no verified external player pool exists.

Hint and Undo create an Assisted result

Hint can recommend the discard pile or stock, identify a candidate discard, or advise a knock decision. Undo restores a pre-decision state. Both are useful study tools, especially when learning how overlapping melds change deadwood, but both change the Clean label to Assisted so a learning session is not presented as unaided.

The same-date hand can be resumed without an account

There is no sign-in, cloud profile or paid API involved. The date seed and current autosave live in the browser. That keeps the Daily identity reproducible for QA and makes it possible to verify that V0.96 data migrates into `dbp:v90` without rewriting the older serialized value.

Practice Hand is better for repeated experimentation

Daily gives one stable deal identity per date. Practice Hand generates a seed that can be refreshed or shared locally as a reproducible session. Fresh Hand creates another seed. Match to 100 alternates dealer position and carries points across hands until one side reaches the target. All three modes call the same meld, layoff, knock and scoring engine.

The two-card stock boundary stays honest

If play reaches the point where only two stock cards remain and a stock draw is required, the hand ends without a score. Daily history still records that the session completed, but the app does not invent a reshuffle or award arbitrary points. The next date starts a new deterministic hand.

No wagering, chips, prizes or paid randomness

Daily Gin Rummy uses playing cards as a strategy-learning interface only. There are no wagers, chips, prizes, stakes, purchases or paid-random mechanics. The repeat value comes from recognizing meld structure, remembering visible discards and judging knock risk, not from risking money or virtual currency.

Today’s 6 remains frozen and independent

Gin Rummy is a specialist Practice and Daily route, not a thirteenth or replacement Daily-rotation slot. The cumulative release gate checks that its ID never appears in the Today’s 6 slot definition and that the established 2026 lineup hash stays unchanged after V0.96 is built and sealed.