The Official Rules

One more than the number of players, including jokers. Two players use three decks; four players use five. Shuffle all the decks together thoroughly before dealing.

Hand and Foot is a Canasta variant. The biggest differences: each player is dealt two stacks of 11 cards (a Hand and a Foot) played in sequence, more decks are in play (one more than the number of players), and rounds end automatically when a player empties both stacks and their team has the required canastas.

Each player is dealt two stacks of 11 cards. You play through your Hand first; once it is empty you pick up the Foot and continue on the same turn.

A clean canasta is seven same-rank cards with no wild cards (+500 bonus). A dirty canasta is seven same-rank cards that include at least one wild (+300 bonus). To go out, a team needs four clean and three dirty canastas on the table; a solo player needs one clean and one dirty.

No. The minimum meld is three cards of the same rank; there is no upper limit. A meld becomes a canasta (a "book") once it reaches seven cards and continues to score normally as more cards are added.

You can pick up when you hold at least two natural cards matching the top card's rank to immediately meld it, or when the top card legally extends one of your team's existing round melds. A pickup takes the top four cards of the pile — or all of it if fewer than four remain — and the top card must be melded right away. Discarding a wild card or a black 3 freezes the pile: while that card sits on top, nobody can pick the pile up. The freeze is re-evaluated on every discard, so a natural card discarded on top reopens the pile (with the wild buried in reach of the next four-card pickup). Red 3s never freeze the pile.

When the stock can no longer supply a full two-card draw, the discard pile is shuffled into a new stock — except its top five cards, which stay behind as the discard pile so it remains available for pickups. The reshuffle happens automatically on the draw that needs it, and the turn history notes it. If even the reshuffle cannot supply a full draw, the round ends immediately and is scored as it stands.

Round 1 requires 60 points to lay down your first meld, round 2 requires 90, round 3 requires 120, and round 4 requires 150. The minimum applies only to the meld(s) you use to open; subsequent melds in the same round have no minimum.

No. Wild cards (jokers and 2s) must always be strictly fewer than the naturals in the same meld — equal counts are rejected — so any meld that holds a wild needs at least two natural cards.

A red 3 is a bonus card worth +100 each. After your side has opened the round, you can lay red 3s down as a pure set of 3 or more for the bonus; left in your hand or foot at round end they count as a 100-point penalty. Black 3s cannot be melded — they exist only to be discarded, and discarding one freezes the pile. A black 3 still in your hand or foot at round end also costs 100 points.

Going out means emptying both your Hand and your Foot: the round ends the instant your last card leaves, whether you melded it, laid it off on an existing meld, or discarded it. A closing discard is one way to go out, not a requirement. Your side must have the required canastas on the table before going out is allowed — four clean and three dirty in team play, or one clean and one dirty in a solo game. Around a physical table, many groups also expect the player going out to ask their partner for permission first — in Hand and Foot Frenzy there is no permission step; the round ends automatically on a legal going-out play.

Until the required canastas are down, melding is held one move further back than you might expect: a meld or layoff that would leave you with fewer than two cards across Hand and Foot is rejected with "Cannot meld your last cards…", even though you were not trying to close. Discarding is only blocked on the very last card ("Cannot discard your last card…"), so you can still discard down to one. Both are the same go-out gate: a play that strands you with no legal move but going out is refused before it commits. It is not an extra rule about melding — get the canastas your side needs onto the table (four clean and three dirty in team play, or one clean and one dirty solo) and the floor lifts, because from that point emptying out is a legal close rather than a dead end.

Each round, sum the face value of every melded card, add bonuses (going out +100, clean canasta +500, dirty canasta +300, red 3 +100 each), then subtract the face value of any cards left in players' hands or feet. The team or player with the highest cumulative score after four rounds wins.