How to play Chinchón: the complete rules
Chinchón is a Spanish and Latin American rummy-style card game. Each player gets 7 cards and draws and discards each turn, trying to meld runs of the same suit or sets of equal cards. When someone closes, everyone else scores penalty points for unmelded cards — and whoever passes the agreed limit (usually 70 or 100) is eliminated.
That is enough to sit down and play. The details — when you can close, card values, and what exactly a chinchón is — follow below.
Deck and deal
The game is usually played with the 40-card Spanish deck, using the ace of coins as a joker; 48- and 50-card variants exist too. Each player receives 7 cards; the rest becomes the draw pile, with one card face up starting the discard pile.
Your turn
Draw one card (from the pile or the discard), then discard one. You are building melds of at least 3 cards: sets of equal rank (three sixes) or runs of consecutive cards in one suit (5-6-7 of cups).
Closing a round
You may close when, after melding, you hold at most one low leftover card (under 5 points in most variants) or none. Everyone reveals their hand: melded cards score nothing, unmelded cards add their value as penalty points.
The -10 and the chinchón
Close with all 7 cards melded and you subtract 10 points. If your 7 cards form one complete run of the same suit, that is a chinchón: instant victory without a joker, or -25 points if a joker was used.
Elimination and re-entry
Passing the limit (70 or 100) eliminates you, though many tables allow a re-entry: you come back with the highest score among surviving players. Last player under the limit wins.
Who keeps track of all this?
That is the tedious part: round sums, -10s and -25s, eliminations, re-entries and the pot. The Chinchón Score Counter handles it automatically — you enter each round's points and the app computes totals, eliminations and re-entries without mistakes, fully offline.
You play — the app does the math
Download the Chinchón Score Counter: rounds, re-entries, pots and stats. Free.
