A table of Canasta is played over several rounds. To be allowed to go out of a round, you or your team must have melded at least one set of seven cards – a canasta. Melding and going out are the main ways you can collect points. This is called going out and it is achieved by cleverly collecting and combining cards to form sets and melding them.

A round of Canasta ends when a player has no more cards on their hand. In Canasta, you try to collect more points than your opponents over the course of several rounds. In each case, there are two opposing parties. In a game of four, you are not playing alone but in teams of two.

The Canasta rules for 4 players and 2 players are the same, except for a few details. Their points are displayed in orange as well. There are also two buttons – the undo button and the permission button. The center area, separated by lines, holds the stock, discard pile, and score display for both players. Usually, the two players facing each other at the table form a team. At the beginning of a game of four, the teams (or alliances) are assigned and persist for all rounds played at the table. If a wild card or a bonus card appears here, another card is drawn and discarded until this is not the case anymore. One card is revealed from the stock pile and is now the base of the discard pile. The cards are dealt at the beginning of the game. How many cards are dealt in Canasta varies depending on the number of players: In a game of two, each player receives 15 cards in a game of four, 11 cards. There are eight cards of each rank, for example, eight Kings, eight Threes, etc. Most of the time, Canasta is played with two decks of French playing cards (52 cards each) and four Jokers. And we prepared deeper looks into specific aspects of the game in our Canasta lessons. In addition to this thorough Canasta manual, you can find quick explanations for all terms around playing Canasta in our glossary.

Once you gained some experience, you can arrange custom rules to construct the game you enjoy most. Our basic Canasta game rules are perfectly adjusted for novices and make for an easy start. Since a game of Canasta can take a while, we allow setting a limit to the number of rounds. Our classic Canasta rules are based on the official Canasta rules of the New York Regency Whist Club. Now, let us take a look at how to play Canasta! We offer tables for two and four players. At the Canasta Palace, you can play in real-time with fellow card game enthusiasts from all over the world.

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