Hand and Foot

Hand and Foot is a North American game that is similar to canasta and appeared in the 1980s. The game is always played with partners. Hand and Foot is a melding game where the objective is to meld all the cards you are dealt into stacks belonging to the partnership. Although there are many variations on the game, few are in print at this time. Because of the large number of variations, it is important to know the house rules that are being played with. Many of these variants are shared by players on the internet. The game uses more decks of cards than canasta, making it easier to play, especially for beginners.

Hand and Foot is normally played in teams of two players with either two or three teams. The number of decks of 54 cards (both jokers are included in each deck) used is commonly one more then than the number of players. For each hand, each player is dealt a hand of 11 cards and a foot (a second hand that is not immediately used) of 13 cards. (Some variants deal the same number of cards to both the hand and the foot, either 11 or 13.) A player continues to play from their first hand until they have played or discarded the last card from it. At that point they can pick up their second hand (the foot). If they played the last card from their hand, then they can continue to play. If they picked up the foot because of a discard, they have to wait until their next turn to play any of the cards from their foot. The round ends when one player has played all of his cards.

The main point of the game is the melding of cards into stacks of three (the minimum number of cards) to seven (the maximum) cards. Melds can consist of only cards of the same rank. Twos and jokers are wild and can be melded into any stack, however, the number of wilds is limited depending on the number of cards in the meld. Once there are seven cards in a meld, it is considered complete and called a pile. Piles can be clean (not wild cards), dirty (one or two wild cards), or containing just wild cards. A partnership must have a certain number of piles in order to end the round. Threes of each suit have special rules depending on the variant being played, but normally they cannot meld and count for a large number of points against the player holding them at the end of the game.

When the round ends, points are awarded for the cards melded plus completed piles. Points are lost for cards that have not been played (either in the player's hand or foot). Play continues to a certain number or points or a certain number of rounds. If playing a certain number of rounds, it is typical for each player to deal the same number of times.

Commercial card decks to play Hand and Foot have been produced since 1987.

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