Hand n Foot and Canasta

If you were to describe the game of hand and foot to someone who had never heard of it before, you might draw a comparison between it and the game of canasta.  The game of Canasta has its origins in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1939.  It was so popular that it spread to Argentina and then to the United States.  Before long Canasta was a card game that was being played throughout the world, with its popularity reaching a peak in the 1950s.

Canasta is played with two decks of cards, plus the two jokers, for a total of 108 cards.  Players are dealt hands as well as having a stack of cards on the table called “stock” to pull from and as well as a discard pile.  The game is best played with four players as partners, but the game can be played with two or three players as well.  The play ends when a player “goes out,” which means that they have used all the cards from their hand.  This can only be accomplished after certain conditions have been met.

Hand n foot is a game that is also best played with four players in a partnership.  In this game, however, each player is actually dealt two different sets of cards with one set being the hand and the other being the foot.  The foot cannot be played until the hand has been used up.  Much like in a game of canasta, the object of the game includes “melds,” which means that you are able to get rid of cards from your hand or your foot by creating sets of between three and seven cards that have equal rank face up on the table.  The melds are created in a partnership, and are not limited to a single player.  And, as is the case with canasta, there are several variations on the rules that can be found in differing households.  While the rules may change a little from place to place, both games remain challenging and entertaining ways to spend time with friends and family.