Hand And Foot Card Game Directions
What are the Hand and Foot card game directions? This version of canasta is played with two sets of cards, a hand and a foot, unlike traditional canasta which is played with a just a hand. Here are your basic rules of play.
In Hand and Foot, you pick a partner and sit facing him/her. You will work as a team to beat the other team. First shuffle five or six decks together, including the jokers, and deal 11 cards to each player. This becomes their hand. Deal 11 more to each player face down, this will be their foot and cannot be looked at until all of the cards in their hand are played. Place the rest of the cards in the center of the table and turn over the first card.
The player to the left of the dealer will pick up 2 cards from the draw pile and to end his/her turn lay one down on the discard pile. Alternatively you can pick up cards from the discard pile instead of picking up two new cards from the draw pile, but, you must be able to use the bottom card, and it has to be used during that turn.
The aim of the games is to get rid of all of the cards in your hand and then all of the cards from your foot. This is done by melding. A meld is a set of three to seven cards of equal rank placed face up on the table. A meld cannot have fewer than three cards.
After a meld of three or more cards is laid down, you continue to add to it until there are seven. Then it becomes a Book. You can meld cards of any rank from A, K, Q… down to 3.
In hand and foot Deuces and Jokers are wild. They can be used in melds as long as there is at least one more real card than wild card in the meld. You cannot have a meld of wilds cards only. There are two kinds of melds. A clean meld has no wilds and may become a red book. A dirty meld has wilds and may become a black book.
Melds are laid face up for all to see, while complete books are piled upside down and a card is placed on top, face up to show the type, a red card for a clean red book, a black card for a dirty black book. Cards of equal rank can be played on completed books, but wild cards cannot be played on books.
You score points for cards in melds and books. If you did not go out, you lose points for cards in your hand and foot at the end of the game. Hand and foot card games end when someone gets rid of all the cards in their hand and foot.