If a player receives one or more red 3's he must exchange them for another card from the stock. If the card turned over is a wild card, a red 2 or 3, the card is discarded and the dealer turns over a new card. After each player is dealt 11 cards, the dealer turns over the first card from the stock. The cards that are not dealt constitute a stock that is placed face down on the table. He distributes eleven cards to each player. The game of canasta starts with a deal made by the dealer. Two decks of 54 cards (two classic 52-card decks with two wildcards).
The game is played with four players forming two teams of two.But remember to raise a glass of clericó or perhaps Grappamiel to Segundo Santos and Alberto Serrato in thanks for this lovely game. However you play it, we know you’ll enjoy it. If you are so inclined or have enough people to play, three-person teams can be done as well. Try playing in pairs but if you don’t have quite enough people to play pairs, you can easily adapt this to a two-person game. And if they haven’t played Canasta before, be sure to introduce them to this wildly fun game. Next time you are having some friends over be sure to have two decks on the ready. A game created for no other reason than to have something other than Bridge to play and took the world by storm. Through this you can determine which cards you can safely discard without having others pick it up to improve their own hand.)ĭuring a player’s turn they can add cards to their teammates’ melds. Try to keep track of what your opponents are discarding to see what they do not need. Red three’s are not allowed to be used in melds and must be put on the table immediately with the melds but not as part of a meld. These can be used in place of any card when melding or creating a canasta. Those card points would simply be deducted from the overall score.Ĭanasta also uses wild cards, which are the deuces and aces. When playing as a team, if one person on the team goes out, it is considered that the team goes out even if the second person in the team is still holding cards. Scores would be made up of each player’s melds and canastas minus any cards they may have left in their hand if they haven’t gone out. If the Canasta is all-natural (without wildcards), each is worth 500.