Deadwood

The cards which are left in the hand of the player as the game ends and are not ordered by series.

These are the cards which are left in the hands of the players after the last move in the game; the sum of these cards is counted to the iniquity of the same player who's left with the cards.

For example – In the game of Gin, when a player is making his final move and reveals all his series ordered cards on the table and performs a Knock. If that player is left one card or more which do not fit any series, the sum of the cards which are left will be counted as Deadwood in this game.

In this game the Deadwood sum can not be more than 10.

Even though the Deadwood cards are not useful, it doesn't mean they are not effective, when you are building series in your hand, it is better you build running series and not sets, because in running series you have more chance to add the Deadwood cards later, than to add them in series of sets when these series you can gather up to 4 cards only.