# Canasta — Sit With Us, We Play in Pairs *By Aunt Rosa — who has hosted the Sunday card table for fifty years and never once lost her own deal* --- Come in, come in — wipe your feet and sit *across* from me. No, not beside — *across*. In Canasta we play in partnerships, and you and I are a team. The two across the table from us? Lovely people. The enemy. We'll be polite and we'll beat them. ## The Goal First **team** to **5,000 points** wins the match — not in one hand, but over several. You score by laying down *melds* and, above all, by building **canastas**. Help me build ours and we'll be drinking the good coffee by evening. ## The Cards We play with **two whole decks plus four jokers** — 108 cards. You start with **eleven** in your hand. Some cards are special: - **Wild cards** — the **jokers** (worth 50) and every **two** (worth 20). A wild can stand in for almost any card in a meld. - **Red threes** — pure bonus. The moment one lands in your hand it pops onto the table by itself and you draw a replacement. Each is worth **100** (all four together, a glorious **800**) — *but only if our team has melded.* Sit there doing nothing and they count *against* us. - **Black threes** — stubborn little things. You can't meld them, and tossing one onto the discard pile slams the door so the next player can't grab it. ## Your Turn, Step by Step ### 1. Draw Either take the top card of the **stock**, or scoop up the *entire* **discard pile** — pile-taking is how fortunes are made. But you may only take the pile if you can use its **top card** right away: - Hold **two natural cards** matching it and you may always take it. - If the pile isn't **frozen** and we've already melded, one natural plus a wild will do, or you can add the top card to a meld we already have. A **frozen** pile (someone discarded a wild onto it — you'll see the ❄ badge) demands two natural matches, no shortcuts. And remember: before our team's *first* meld, you must use two naturals regardless. ### 2. Meld A **meld** is three or more cards of the same rank laid on the table — and melds belong to the *team*, so I can build on yours and you on mine. A meld may carry up to **three** wild cards, but never more wilds than naturals. Our **first** meld of the game must reach a minimum point total that climbs as our score grows — **50** to start, then 90, then 120. The game will tell you the number; just select cards and press **Meld**. ### 3. Discard End your turn by tossing one card onto the discard pile. Select a single card and press **Discard**. (Throw a wild and you *freeze* the pile — sometimes exactly what you want.) ## Canastas — the Whole Point A **canasta** is a meld of **seven** cards. - **Natural canasta** — seven cards, no wilds. A beauty. **500** points. - **Mixed canasta** — seven cards with a wild or two. Still grand. **300** points. You'll see ours glow gold (natural) or silver (mixed) in the meld area. ## Going Out To end the hand, a player empties their hand — but **only if our team owns at least one canasta**. Going out earns a **100** bonus (200 if you do it all in one breathtaking turn having never melded before). When the hand ends we tally melds, canastas, red threes and the go-out bonus, then *subtract* the value of every card still stuck in our hands. So don't get caught holding a fistful at the end. ## Rosa's Rules of the Heart - **Hoard for a canasta.** A meld of four is nice; a canasta is a fortune. Don't break up a near-canasta to start something new. - **Watch what they want.** If the pile is fat, the player after you may be drooling for it — drop a black three and shut them out. - **Mind the freeze.** Frozen piles are heavy and hard to take; freeze it when *we're* sitting pretty and they aren't. - **Red threes love a melded team.** Get a meld down early so our bonus cards count *for* us. That's the whole song, dear. Watch the table, trust your partner, and build, build, build. Now — your draw. And do try to look like you know what you're doing; they're watching.