Hand and Foot rules

How to Play Hand and Foot

Hand and Foot is Canasta's bigger, friendlier cousin. Each player gets two piles of cards: a "hand" to play first and a "foot" to play next. Teams build seven-card "books" and race to go out.

A word about house rules

Hand and Foot has no single official rule book. Most people learn it from family and friends rather than from a printed rule sheet, so almost every table plays a little differently.

This page gives the most common version we found across rule books, card makers and game sites. Where groups commonly differ, we say so. Before you play with a new group, agree the rules and write them down.

What you need

• Four players in two teams of two is the classic setup. Partners sit across from each other. The game also works for 2, 3 or 6 players.
• Standard decks with their jokers. A common rule of thumb is one more deck than the number of players: five decks (with 10 jokers) for four players.
• A score sheet, or our free scorekeeper.

See how many decks you need for other group sizes.

The cards

The deal

1. Shuffle all the decks together. With this many cards, it is fine to split them into a few piles and have several people shuffle.
2. Each player gets two piles of 11 cards. The first pile is your hand. The second is your foot. Put your foot to one side, face down. Do not look at it.
3. Some families skip dealing: each player grabs a chunk from the deck and counts out 22 cards. Some give a small bonus (often 100) to anyone who grabs exactly 22 on the first try.
4. The rest of the cards form the stock. Turn the top card face up to start the discard pile. If it is a wild card or a red three, bury it in the stock and turn another.

Some groups deal 13 cards to each pile instead of 11. It makes for a longer hand with more melding.

Four rounds, rising minimums

A game is four rounds. In each round, your team's first meld must add up to a minimum number of points, and the minimum rises every round:

Only card values count toward the minimum, not red threes or book bonuses. You may use several melds to reach it. Once either partner has made the opening meld, your team is "down" for the rest of the round.

The team with the highest total after four rounds wins.

Your turn

1. Draw two cards from the stock, or pick up the discard pile if you can (see below).
2. Meld if you want to: start new melds or add to your team's melds.
3. Discard one card.

If you draw a red three, lay it face up with your team's melds and draw a replacement.

Melds and books

A meld is three or more cards of the same rank, from 4 up to ace. Threes cannot be melded. When a meld reaches seven cards, it becomes a book. Square it up into a neat stack to show it is finished.

• A clean book (also called natural or red) has no wild cards. Put a red card on top.
• A dirty book (also called mixed or black) has at least one wild card. Put a black card on top.

Wild card rules

• A meld must always have more natural cards than wild cards. So a three-card meld can have one wild, and a finished dirty book can have at most three.
• Some groups are stricter and allow only one wild card until the meld reaches six cards, and two at most after that.
• Once a wild card is in a meld, it stays there. You cannot move it.
• Once a book is clean, you cannot add a wild card to it.

Other meld rules

• Melds belong to the team. Either partner may add to them. You cannot add to the other team's melds.
• Your team may not have two unfinished melds of the same rank. Once your sevens are a closed book, you may start a new meld of sevens.
• In most games a book stops at seven cards.

Picking up the discard pile

You may take the discard pile instead of drawing from the stock if:

• The top card is not a black three, and
• You hold two natural cards of the same rank as the top card, and
• You meld those three cards right away (or add them to a matching meld your team has).

In the most common version, you take only the top seven cards of the pile, or all of it if there are fewer than seven. Some groups take the whole pile.

If your team has not made its opening meld yet, the top card can count toward the minimum, but the other cards you pick up cannot.

Picking up your foot

Once your hand is used up, you pick up your foot. There are two ways to get there:

• Play into it: meld every card in your hand. Pick up your foot straight away and keep playing your turn from it. You still discard at the end.
• Discard into it: meld all but one card and discard the last one. Pick up your foot at the start of your next turn.

Red threes and black threes

• Red threes are worth 100 points each when laid down. If one is still in your hand or foot when the round ends, it counts minus 100. Some groups use 500 instead.
• Black threes cannot be melded. Discarding one stops the next player from picking up the pile. Each black three left in your hand at the end costs 5 points.

For all the variations, see red threes and black threes.

Going out

To go out, your team needs all of the following:

1. At least two clean books and two dirty books. This is the most common requirement, and it is the one we use as our default.
2. You must have picked up and be playing from your foot. Most groups also require that your partner has picked up their foot.
3. You ask your partner, "May I go out?" If your partner says no, you must keep playing. The answer is binding.

You go out by melding all your cards, or melding all but one and discarding the last. Your team earns a 100-point going-out bonus, and the round ends at once.

If you cannot go out yet, you must not play yourself down to zero cards. Keep at least one card to discard.

When the stock runs out

If a player needs to draw and the stock is empty, the round ends. Both teams score their melds and books and subtract cards left in hand and foot. Nobody gets the going-out bonus.

Scoring

At the end of each round, each team scores:

• 500 for each clean book and 300 for each dirty book,
• 100 for each red three laid down,
• 100 for going out (one team only),
• plus the value of every card melded on the table,
• minus the value of every card left in each player's hand and foot.

See Hand and Foot scoring for a worked example.

Common house rules

These are the variations we see most often. None is "wrong." Just agree before you start. For more detail on each one, and how to set it in the scorekeeper, see Hand and Foot house rules.

Some groups also add penalties: often 100 points for going out after your partner said no, and 50 for picking up the pile when you could not legally use the top card.

Coming from Canasta? Our Canasta vs. Hand and Foot page sums up the differences. Ready to play better? Try our Hand and Foot strategy tips.