🂺Canasta
Partnership melding with wild cards, frozen piles and 500-point canastas.
- 4 players
- ~30 min
- hard
- Free
Dealing…
How to play Canasta
Objective
As a partnership, be the first to 5,000 points by melding and completing canastas.
Setup
- Two 52-card decks plus four Jokers (108 cards).
- Four players in two partnerships; 11 cards each.
Rules
- Melds are three or more cards of the same rank; Jokers and 2s are wild.
- A meld of seven or more cards is a canasta — 500 points if it's all natural, 300 if it contains wilds.
- Your first meld must meet a minimum point threshold based on your current score.
- Red 3s are bonus cards worth 100 each and are set aside immediately.
- The discard pile is frozen against a side that hasn't melded, or by a wild card or a black 3.
- A partnership must have at least one canasta before going out.
Strategy tips
- Prioritise one big canasta over several small melds.
- Wild cards are precious — hold them for a canasta you can actually finish.
- Freezing the pile is a strong defensive move when opponents are close to going out.
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