Taking Cards on Speculation
Taking cards on speculation in Oklahoma Gin is relatively important. This refers to picking up the original up-card, or any discard of your opponent without that card giving you a new meld or even providing an addition to an existing meld in your hand. You are taking this card not because it gives you a meld, but because it gives you a new combination or the beginning of a new meld which at the moment you believe to need. Speculation of cards can sometimes be good, but not always. There are definitely ways to figure out a good speculation card versus a bad speculation card.
For example, if you take a 9? after your opponent discarded it based solely on the fact that you have another 9 in your hand this can be called a speculative play if you have no nearby clubs. Also, if you take that 9 just because you have the 8?, it is an equally a bad waste of time. Almost without exception, taking a discard on such a slim provocation is generally considered playing bad Gin Rummy.
A legitimate speculation play provided everything else about the hand calls for preferring it to a pick from the stock, comes when the discard hits two cards in your hand. For example, when your opponent discards that same 9? and you are holding another 9 as well as either the 8? or 10? you have then created a combination which may develop into a meld with the assistance of four other cards. Although it is slightly less advantageous, if you have a 9, as well as the 7? or J? then you could also create a combination in which the cards could hit.
Taking cards on speculation is not a normal way of life for a winning Gin Rummy player. In the standard 10 point knock game, the hands that call for taking a card on speculation are very few and far between. In Oklahoma Gin, with lower knock cards going way down to the Ace, you can feel compelled to take speculation cards more often. Since you are forced to play for three melds often, if not for Gin, you may need the potential meld combinations if you have no melds in your hand at all.
Under such circumstances, drastic measures may be in order. If you need melds and have no cards that can give you them, then speculation may be a good idea. As you have seen, no hand in Gin Rummy is completely hopeless. Wonderful things can happen, and they frequently do if you play intelligently. So, with quite a few hands, depending on their exact composition, the size of the up-card, and sometimes even strategic reasons, you can indeed take a card on speculation. So this should have given you a good overview of the Gin Rummy Rules in regards to taking cards on speculation.