Foot Canasta

Foot Canasta is played by four players in two partnerships, partners sitting opposite: here you and North play against West and East. It uses five 54-card decks shuffled together, 270 cards in all. Each player gets two stacks of 13 cards: the hand, which you play first, and the foot, which you can't look at until your hand is used up. Play is clockwise, and a game is four deals.

Your side melds together. A meld is 3 to 7 cards of the same rank, from 4 up to Ace. Twos and Jokers are wild, but a meld must have at least twice as many natural cards as wild ones. A meld of only wild cards is allowed too. Seven cards make a finished pile: clean if it has no wild cards, dirty if it has some, or wild if it is all wild cards. Your side may not have two unfinished melds of the same rank.

On your turn, either draw two cards from the stock, or take the top seven cards of the discard pile (the whole pile, if it holds fewer). To take the pile you must hold two cards matching the top discard and meld them with it straight away; you can't take it when a three is on top. Then make any melds you like, and finish by discarding one card.

When your hand is used up you pick up your foot: straight away if you melded your last card, or at the start of your next turn if you discarded it.

• Your side's first meld in each deal must be worth at least 50, 90, 120 and then 150 points, counting only the cards you put down.
• Red threes are laid out at once and replaced: +100 each, but −100 if one is still in your hand or foot at the end. Black threes can't be melded; discarding one stops the next player taking the pile.
• To go out, your side needs two clean piles, two dirty piles and one wild pile, and your partner must already be playing from their foot. Until then you may never run out of cards.
• Card values: Joker 50, Two and Ace 20, Eight to King 10, Four to Seven 5, black Three 5. Melded cards count for you; cards left in your hand and foot count against you.
• Bonuses: clean pile 500, dirty pile 300, wild pile 1500, going out 100. The deal also ends if someone needs to draw and the stock has run out.
• After four deals, the side with the higher total wins.

• Tap cards in your hand to select them; tap again to deselect.
• Start your turn with Draw 2, or select two cards matching the top discard and tap Take pile.
• Tap Meld to put the selected cards down as a new meld, or tap one of your side's melds to add them to it.
• Before your side has melded, Set aside collects groups for the first meld; Lay down puts them all down once they reach the minimum.
• Select one card and tap Discard to end your turn.

• Daily: everyone gets the same deals each day.
• New Game: a fresh game with new deals.

• Getting into your foot is the first goal: it gives your side 13 more cards to meld, and your partner can't go out until you're in it.
• Wild cards are precious. You need seven of them for the wild pile, worth 1500, but a wild card is also often the quickest way to finish a meld and empty your hand.
• Keep a pair or two of ranks the opponents might discard, so you can take the pile.
• Discard a black three when the discard pile is big: it stops the next player taking it.

This game is widely known as Hand and Foot. Pagat.com describes it as a North American game related to Canasta, named for the two sets of cards each player is dealt: the hand, played first, and the foot, played when the hand has been used up. Pagat notes that there are numerous variations and no standard rules.

Its parent, Canasta, was devised in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1939 by Segundo Santos and Alberto Serrato, and became hugely popular in the United States in the 1950s. Hand and Foot keeps Canasta's melds of seven, its wild twos and Jokers and its red and black threes, but adds the second stack of cards and the requirement for clean, dirty and wild piles before anyone can go out.

We call our version Foot Canasta. The rules follow pagat's main description of the four-player partnership game, with one simplification: pagat has you ask your partner's permission to go out, and here partners always agree.

Foot Canasta is a free browser version of the Hand and Foot card game, played with a computer partner against two computer opponents, with a daily game and online leaderboards. There's nothing to download and no sign-up.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.