No meld may ever contain more than seven cards. The remaining cards are all of the same rank (not threes or sevens).Ī meld can be started with three or more cards and built up to a canasta by adding cards on later turns. Seven cards of the same rank with no wild cards.Ĭontains one, two or three wild cards.

Discarding one card from your hand face up on the discard pile.Ī canasta is a meld of seven cards.

Possibly starting a new meld or adding one or more cards to your own side's melds.

Drawing the top two cards from the stock or taking the entire discard pile.

The remaining stock of 72 cards is placed face down and its top card is turned face up beside it to start the discard pile. The dealer deals 13 cards to each player, one at a time, which the players may look at, followed by a further 11 cards to each, which must not be looked at and are kept in a face-down pile until the player has completed a canasta. The values of the individual cards, as in Canasta, are: Red and black threes have special properties as in regular canasta. 4 packs of cards are used, including 2 jokers for each pack - a total of 216 cards. There are 6 players in two teams, sitting alternately. The rules of ordinary Canasta apply, except for the differences explained below. Gorgon has contributed a version called Railroad Canasta, and Barbara Bain's version of Hand and Foot is another game of this type.Īlmost identical descriptions of this game appears in the US Playing Card Company's publication 'Official Rules of Card Games' and in John Scarne's 'Encyclopedia of Games'. In the card game literature this type of game is generally known as Pennies from Heaven.

There are four types of canasta: natural (red), mixed (black), wild (twos and jokers only) and sevens.As in Hand and Foot, each player is dealt a second hand of cards, which can be picked up only when when the player has completed a canasta.The games described on this page belong to a distinctive North American variety of Canasta or Hand and Foot with the following special features:

This page is partly based on contributions from Barbara Bain and from Gorgon.

Card game rules for sevens