He deals eleven cards apiece, and turns up the next card. The player at your right is the first dealer, so you’ll have first play. Our game is four-handed you have a partner across the table. But if you take the top card of the discard pile, you must (actually it’s a privilege) also pick up the rest of the discard pile along with it.Īll set? We’re ready to deal. Play proceeds as in rummy draw, meld, discard. (Game is 5,000.) After either partner has melded the minimum in the current hand, any meld - even one card - is sufficient for both partners.ĥ. After your score reaches 1,500 this minimum goes up to 90 at the 3,000-point mark it goes up to 120. The first meld by you or your partner must be worth at least 50.

The card values are: Joker, 50 aces and deuces, 20 each king down to eight, 10 each seven down to black threes, 5 each. The cards score for you if you meld them, against you if they are still in your hand when a player goes out. You can add one or more cards to the melds of your own side, but not to those of the opponents.ģ. Your melds and your partner’s are combined, and one of you keeps all of them. You can’t meld two wild cards and an ace, for example, as three aces.Ģ. Jokers and deuces are wild, but every set must contain at least two natural matching cards. The only melds are three or more of a kind sequences do not count. Other things you should know before you start are:ġ. They are the highest scoring combinations and, unless your side has melded at least one canasta, you cannot go out. But the making of canastas is the most important object of the game for two reasons. Some of these seven cards may be wild cards (jokers or deuces), as you will see. The name Canasta comes from one of the melds - a set of seven cards of the same rank. There are special scorepads, but a bridge score will do, or a piece of paper with columns for WE and THEY.

All this makes a 108-card pack, and that’s what you play Canasta with.įor keeping score, you need a pencil and a scorepad. (That’s easy, because in every pack of cards there are a joker and an extra joker.) The two packs don’t have to be the same color, but they do have to be the same size. Mix together two full packs of playing cards (52 cards each) plus four jokers. Because there are quite a number of rules, however, the best way to learn is to read just the few things you need know in advance and then play a game with us, picking up the rest as you play. Canasta is high-scoring and absorbing, involving some skill but far less complex than bridge.Īnyone who knows how to play rummy can learn Canasta quickly. You will like Canasta because it is a good partnership game for four players it is an interesting, exciting game for two players and three, or five, or six, can play and enjoy it as well. Authority An Introduction to CANASTA For Those Who Never Have Played

American canasta rules for two players