Learn, play offline or online

Canasta


Canasta starting point

Introduction. Canasta card game

Canasta is a matching card game in which the object is to create melds of cards of the same rank and then go out by playing or discarding all the cards in your hand.

Canasta (Spanish for "basket") is a card game originating in Uruguay. Canasta is commonly played by four players in two partnerships with two standard decks of cards, but many Canasta variations exist for 2-3 and 6-player canasta games or teams. It is played with two standard 52 card packs plus four jokers (two from each pack), 108 cards in all.

In Canasta players attempt to make melds of 7 cards of the same rank, and "go out" by playing all cards in their hand and discarding. A valid meld consists of three or more cards of the same rank. Wild cards (jokers and twos) can be used in melds. Every meld must contain at least two natural cards, the number of wild cards should not exceed the number of natural card and be less or equal to 3. A meld of seven cards is called a canasta. If all of the cards in it are natural, it is called a natural canasta (500 points), if it includes one or more wild cards it is called a mixed canasta (300 points). Each turn is begun by either drawing the top card from the face-down stock (draw deck) or taking the whole of the discard pile. If you wish, you can meld after drawing, the turn ends by discarding a card to discard pile. To go out and thus to end play you should have one or two canastas among melds after melding all of your cards.

Here you can play two-player canasta against other people worldwide or learn Canasta to play asainst computer opponent.

Get started