Melds are sets of three to seven cards of the same rank (suit doesn't matter). If a player empties their hand through melding, they immediately pick up their foot and continue creating/adding to melds. If drawing from the stock, or when satisfying the discard requirements above, players are then free to create melds or add to melds in their team's space.

The player must be able to immediately meld those two cards with the third in the pile.

Two cards in that player's hand must be of the same rank as the top card in the discard pile.

The top card of the discard pile cannot be a black Three.

If a player chooses to take the discard cards, they must meet these requirements: On every turn, players begin by either drawing the top two cards from the stock or by taking the top seven cards from the discard pile. These are not counted as melds but will affect scores at the end of a hand.

Play proceeds clockwise from the dealer.īefore taking their first turn of the game, each player must place any red Threes they hold face-up in their melding space, then draw the same number of cards from the stock.

If that card is a red Three or a wild card, reshuffle it into the stock and turn over a different card. Turn the top card of the stock over to start the discard pile. Players may not look at their foot cards until they've played all of the cards in their hand. That team will deal 13 cards to each player's hand and 13 face-down cards to each player's foot. So, for a game with four people you'll need five standard decks with two Jokers per pack, totaling 270 cards.

You will need one deck more than the number of players.

Teammates share a melding space on the table.

Four players form two teams with partners sitting opposite each other.

Points are distributed on a per-team-basis, so players must work together to build valuable melds and try to block their opponents from picking up cards they need.

Players start with a 13-card hand along with a face-down 13-card 'foot' that is only used once the hand is emptied.

The goal of Hand and Foot is to empty your hand by forming table melds and to end up as the highest scoring team after four rounds.

Canasta online with friends