How to Play Hand and Foot

Hand and Foot is a partnership card game that grew out of Canasta. It's a favorite at family reunions, church groups and retirement communities, partly because it's sociable and partly because the big piles of cards make for big, satisfying scores. The twist that gives the game its name: every player gets two sets of cards, a hand to play first and a foot waiting for later.

Almost every family plays Hand and Foot a little differently. This page explains the rules our free online game uses by default. Where groups commonly do it another way, we say so, and our rule variations page covers those in detail.

What You Need

• Four players in two teams of two. Partners sit across from each other.
• Five standard decks with two jokers each, shuffled together: 270 cards in all.
• A pencil and score pad. Online, the scoreboard keeps track for you.

In our online game you sit at the South seat. Your partner is North, and your opponents are West and East. Play goes clockwise: you, then West, then North, then East.

The Deal: Your Hand and Your Foot

Each player is dealt two piles of 11 cards. Pick up the first pile; that's your hand. Leave the second pile face down in front of you without looking at it; that's your foot. You won't see your foot until you've played every card in your hand.

The undealt cards go face down in the middle as the stock. The discard pile starts empty.

Card Values

Cards are worth points when they are melded on the table, and cost you points if they're stuck in your hand at the end.

Taking a Turn

1. Draw two cards from the stock, or pick up the discard pile (explained below).
2. Meld if you want to: put down new piles or add cards to your team's piles.
3. Discard one card face up on the discard pile. Your turn is over.

Melds and Books

A meld is three or more cards of the same rank, from 4s up through aces, placed face up on the table. Partners share their melds: anything you put down belongs to the team, and either of you can add to it.

• Jokers and 2s are wild. They can stand in for any rank in a meld.
• Every meld needs at least two natural cards, and a pile can never have more wild cards than natural cards. So 9-9-joker is fine, but 9-joker-2 is not.
• Your team may have only one unfinished pile of each rank at a time.

When a pile reaches seven cards, it becomes a book. The cards are squared up and the book is closed: nothing more can be added. A team may then start a second pile of the same rank (with five decks, there are twenty of each rank to go around).

• A clean book (also called a natural or red book) has no wild cards at all. Bonus: 500 points.
• A dirty book (also called a mixed or black book) has at least one wild card. Bonus: 300 points.

The First Meld Each Round

Before your team can put anything on the table in a round, the first player to meld must lay down cards worth at least a set minimum, counted by adding the card values from the table above. The minimum goes up each round:

You can use more than one meld to reach the minimum, as long as you put them all down in the same turn. Once your team has made its first meld, neither partner has a minimum for the rest of the round.

Example: it's round 1, and you hold three queens and a pair of 7s plus a 2. The queens are worth 30. The 7-7-2 is worth 5 + 5 + 20 = 30. Together that's 60, which beats the 50-point minimum, so you can put both melds down. The queens alone (30) would not be enough.

Picking Up the Discard Pile

Instead of drawing two cards, you may pick up the discard pile if you hold two natural cards of the same rank as the top card. The top card can't be a wild card or a black 3.

1. The top card and your pair go on the table at once, either on your team's unfinished pile of that rank or as a new pile.
2. You take the top seven cards of the pile, counting the top card. The other six go into your hand. Anything deeper stays where it is.
3. If your team hasn't melded yet this round, the top card, your pair and any other melds you lay down that turn must together reach the minimum.

Example: the top of the pile is a jack and you hold two jacks. You place jack-jack-jack on the table and take the next six cards of the pile into your hand. If the pile had only four cards, you would take all of them.

House rule: many families take the whole discard pile, not just seven cards. You can switch to that in Settings → House Rules. See picking up the discard pile.

Red 3s and Black 3s

Red 3s

Red 3s are never melded. Whenever you get one, whether in the deal, from the stock or when you pick up your foot, it's placed face up in front of you and you draw a replacement card from the stock. Our game does this for you automatically. Each red 3 is worth 100 points to your team. But if a player never gets to their foot, any red 3 hiding in it counts minus 500.

Black 3s

A black 3 is a blocking card. When you discard one, the next player can't pick up the discard pile. Black 3s can't be added to ordinary melds; the only way to meld them is on the turn you go out, as a set of three or more black 3s with no wild cards. A black 3 left in your hand at the end costs 5 points.

From Your Hand to Your Foot

When you play the last card from your hand, you pick up your foot:

• If you got rid of your last card by melding, pick up your foot and keep playing right away in the same turn.
• If your last card was your discard, pick up your foot now, but you'll start playing it on your next turn.

Once you're in your foot, you must always keep at least one card to discard at the end of your turn. You can only play down to zero cards when you are actually going out.

Going Out

Going out ends the round. To go out, all of these must be true:

• You are playing from your foot.
• Your team has at least one clean book and one dirty book. (A second clean book can count as the dirty one.)
• You have asked your partner, "May I go out?", and your partner said yes. You may ask once per turn. If the answer is no, you can't go out this turn.

You go out by melding all your remaining cards, or by melding all but one and discarding the last one. Going out earns your team a 100-point bonus. In our game, when your computer partner wants to go out, a box pops up asking you to say yes or no.

The round also ends if the stock runs out. In that case nobody gets the going-out bonus.

Scoring

At the end of each round, each team adds up:

A Worked Example

You go out. Your team has a clean book of kings (7 × 10 = 70 in cards), a dirty book of 7s made from five 7s and two 2s (25 + 40 = 65), and an unfinished pile of queen-queen-joker (10 + 10 + 50 = 70). You have one red 3. Your partner is caught in their foot holding an ace and a 5.

• Books: 500 + 300 = 800
• Melded cards: 70 + 65 + 70 = 205
• Red 3 and going out: 100 + 100 = 200
• Partner's leftover cards: −(20 + 5) = −25
• Your team scores 1,180.

The other team has one dirty book of 10s (six 10s and a joker: 60 + 50 = 110) and a pile of three 8s (30). West holds cards worth 55. East never reached the foot: East's four hand cards are worth 40, and the unplayed foot is worth 95. They score 300 + 110 + 30 − 55 − 40 − 95 = 250.

After four rounds, the team with the higher total wins.

Playing Hand and Foot Online

• Draw takes two cards from the stock. Discard Pile picks up the pile when you have the pair to do it.
• Tap cards to select them, then press Make a new meld, or tap one of your team's piles on the table to add to it.
• Your hand is sorted by rank, with wild cards at the end. The current meld minimum is shown while your team still needs it.
• Press Hint for a suggestion. Tap Why? next to a computer player's move to see its reasoning.
• Every deal has a number. At the end of a hand, Show All Hands reveals every hand and the rest of the stock, and Replay This Deal lets you play the same shuffle again.
• Choose Easy, Normal or Hard computer players, change your family's rules under House Rules, and turn on four-color cards or reduced motion in Settings.
• The game saves itself after every move, so you can stop and come back later.

Once you know the rules, the strategy guide will help you build books faster. If you enjoy Hand and Foot, try classic Canasta too: same family, fewer cards, and a few clever twists.