#Official rules canasta card game archive
#Official rules canasta card game plus

Wild cards (jokers and twos) can normally be used in melds as substitutes for cards of the appropriate rank. You can add further cards of the appropriate rank to any of your side's melds, whether begun by yourself or by your partner, but you can never add cards to an opponent's meld. Typically, a partnership will have several melds, each of a different rank. They are kept face up in front of one of the partners. When playing with partners, melds belong to a partnership, not to an individual player. A valid meld consists of three or more cards of the same natural rank (any rank from four up to ace), such as three kings, six fives, etc. The object of the game is to score points by melding cards.

Discard one card face up on the discard pile to end your turn.

If you wish, make further melds from the cards you now have in your hand.

Take all the remaining cards of the discard pile and add them to your hand.

Place the necessary cards from your hand face up on the table, and add the top card of the discard pile to them to form a valid meld or melds.

In order to do this, you must be able to meld the top discard, without needing any of the other cards in the discard pile to make your meld valid. Under certain conditions, instead of drawing from the stock, you are permitted to take the whole of the discard pile. The game can also end if the stock pile runs out of cards: if a player who wishes to draw from the stock is unable to do so, because there are no cards left there, the play ends immediately and the hand is scored. In many versions of Canasta you can also go out by melding your whole hand, leaving no discard. Having achieved this, you can go out by melding all but one of the cards in your hand and discarding this last card. You are only allowed to go out after your team has fulfilled certain conditions, which vary according to the type of canasta played but always include completing at least one seven-card meld or 'canasta' ( see below). disposes of all the cards in his or her hand.

The play ends when a player goes out, i.e. These melded cards remain face up on the table until the end of the play. To play cards to the table in this way is known as melding, and the sets of cards so played are melds. A basic turn consists of drawing the top card of the stock, adding it to your hand without showing it to the other players, and discarding one card from your hand face up on top of the discard pile.ДЄfter drawing, but before discarding, you may sometimes be able to play some cards from your hand face up on the table. The player to the left of the dealer plays first, and then the turn to play passes clockwise. The Deal and PlayД®ach player is dealt a hand of cards, and in the centre of the table is a face-down pile of cards called the stock and a face-up pile of cards called the discard pile. The threes have special functions and values, depending on which variation of Canasta is being played. With some restrictions, wild cards can be used during the game as substitutes for a natural card of any rank. All of the deuces (twos) and jokers are wild cards. The cards A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 are called natural cards. They have standard point values as follows:

#Official rules canasta card game plus

The CardsД¬anasta is normally played with two standard 52 card packs plus four jokers (two from each pack), making 108 cards in all. To avoid repetition, this section describes the terms and processes that are common to most or all versions of Canasta. However, there are playable versions for two and three players, which are given later on this page. In North America, however, some players have continued to develop the game, and these groups now favour a different version, called Modern American Canasta on this page.Д¬anasta is generally agreed to be best for four players, playing in partnerships. In many countries, Classic Canasta is still played in more or less its original form, sometimes alongside a number of variations. The rules were standardised in North America around 1950, and it was this version of the game, which will be called Classic Canasta on this page, that gained worldwide popularity. It was extremely fashionable in the 1950's, threatening for a while to displace Contract Bridge as the premier card game. From there it spread to Argentina, the USA and throughout the world.

#Official rules canasta card game archive

The game of Canasta is said to have originated in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1939 (see for example this archive copy of Philip E Orbanes' article The Canasta Story).

Canasta Software, Online Games and Books.

Modern American Canasta: Deal Melds Play Threes Initial Meld End of the Play Special Hands Scoring Variations / Table Rules.

Classic Canasta: Deal Melds Initial Meld Play Threes Frozen Discard Pile End of the hand Scoring Strategy Variations.

General Terminology: Cards Deal and Play Melds and Canastas.