

Cards of equal rank can be played on completed Piles.ġ. The remainder of the cards are placed face down in the middle of the table to form a “stock”.Ģ. While melds are laid out face up for everyone to see, completed piles are stacked up and the card placed on top shows the type – a red card for a Red Pile, a black card for a Black Pile.

A Dirty(Wild) Meld has wild cards and may become a Black Pile. A Clean (Natural) Meld has no wild cards and may become a Red Pile.Ģ. Red and black threes cannot be used in melds.Ī meld can contain a total of two wild cards at most.Ī Meld of seven cards is complete and is called a Pile.ġ. You can meld cards of any rank from A, K, Q, … down to 4.ĭeuces or 2’s and Jokers are wild cards and can be used in melds, as long as there is at least twice as many real cards of the rank of the meld as wild cards. If you complete a pile, you can start another meld of the same rank. Melds belong to a partnership and not an individual player.Īfter a meld has been started, each partner can play further cards on either partners melds until there are seven, it then becomes a “closed pile”.Ī meld cannot contain more than seven cards.

Dealing:You can choose of the two options to deal, but whatever method is chosen should be used consistently within the game.ġ.
#Official rules canasta card game full#
Decks: You’ll need four full deck of 52 cards, including the jokers – one deck per player.The following rules are for our “favorite” way to play with four people, two teams of two: The most common version of the game is played with four players in partnerships it can also be played by six people in two teams of three or by any number of individuals. You can either play as individuals or as teams. There are numerous variations of the game and no “standard” rules. Hand and Foot is a North American game related to canasta.Įach player is dealt two sets of cards using one as the “hand” and one as the “foot.
#Official rules canasta card game how to#
In American Canasta, a wild Canasta that contains jokers and 2s, without containing all 4 jokers, is worth 2000 points (in addition to the value of the 2s and jokers in the meld). | Posted March 4th, 2013 How to Play the Card Game Hand and Foot Happy Camper Blog Note that in this version of Canasta, melds consisting entirely of wild cards are not allowed.Īmerican/Modern Canasta does allow a meld or Canasta of all Wilds but that is a less common variant than Classic Canasta. Once a canasta contains three wild cards, no further wild cards can be added.

A wild card added to a pure canasta of course makes it mixed. There is no limit on the number of natural cards that can be added to a complete canasta. No meld can contain more than three wild cards - so a six card meld must include at least three natural cards, and a canasta must contain at least four natural cards. A meld of seven or more cards counts as a canasta. The smallest meld, as usual, consists of three cards, which could be three natural cards (such as 8-8-8) or two natural cards and a wild card (such as Q-Q-2). In Classic Canasta, a Canasta of only wilds is not a legal/valid meld.Įvery meld, whether a Canasta or not, must contain at least 2 natural cards, and it cannot contain more than 3 total wild cards.Įvery meld must contain at least two natural cards.
