Chinchón

How to play Chinchón

Chinchón is the everyday rummy of Spain and Latin America — a quick, two-player game of drawing, melding and knowing exactly when to stop. It's played here against a bot, and the goal is the opposite of most card games: you want the lowest score, not the highest. You can also play it online against another person in real time.

Play Chinchón online with a friend

Choose to play online and you'll be matched with a real opponent, or share a private invite link to play with a friend in the browser — no account and no app needed. The server deals the cards, enforces the rules and keeps both hands in sync in real time.

Goal

Each round adds your leftover card points to your total as a penalty. When a player goes over 100 the game ends and the lower total wins.

Melds & deadwood

You hold seven cards. The aim is to arrange them into melds — a run of three or more cards of the same suit in sequence, or a set of three or four cards of the same rank. Cards left over are deadwood; their points count against you (Ace = 1, number cards their value, Jack/Queen/King = 10 each).

Your turn

• Draw one card — the face-down stock or the face-up top of the discard pile.
• Discard one card to end your turn.
• Close (cortar) when your deadwood would be 5 or less: lay your hand down and the opponent lays their leftover cards off onto your melds before counting. Closing with zero deadwood earns a -10 bonus; closing badly, when the opponent ends level or lower after laying off, costs a +10 penalty.

The Chinchón

Hold a run of seven cards of the same suit and you have a Chinchón — you win the round on the spot and score -10, a huge swing in a race to stay under 100.

Strategy

Keep your hand flexible early — cards that could become either a run or a set are worth holding. Shed your high cards (the tens and faces) before they become deadwood, and watch what the bot discards: a card it throws is one it doesn't need. Don't wait too long to close; a clean 2 or 3 of deadwood dumped on an unready opponent is how rounds are won. Tap the stock or discard to draw, tap a card to discard, and use Close when it lights up. N starts a new game.