Hand and Foot
Hand and Foot is a Canasta-family rummy game for 2 to 4 players. Everyone
races to 10,000 points by melding sets of same-rank cards, completing
books (melds of seven or more), and working through both a hand and a
foot of cards.
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4 players — a partnership game: two fixed teams of partners sitting
across the table.
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Team 1 — Player 1 and Player 3
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Team 2 — Player 2 and Player 4
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Partners share their melds: anything one partner lays on the table can be
extended by the other.
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2 or 3 players — every player for themselves. Each player is their own
"team".
Wherever these rules say "your team", read it as "you and your partner" in the
four-player game, or simply "you" in the two- and three-player games.
Players & setup at a glance
4 standard decks + 8 jokers
11 (face down until entered)
The deck
Hand and Foot uses 216 cards: four standard 52-card decks shuffled together
plus eight Jokers.
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Wild cards — Jokers and all 2s.
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Natural cards — every other rank (Aces through 4s, plus the 3s).
Card point values
Objective
Score the most points across a series of hands and be the first team to reach
10,000. A hand ends when one player "goes out" (empties both hand and foot)
or the stock pile runs out — that is, when it can no longer supply a two-card
draw and the discard pile can't be taken.
Setup
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Each player is dealt 11 cards as their hand and 11 cards as their
foot. The foot stays face down and is not looked at until the hand is
empty.
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The rest form the face-down stock.
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One card is turned face-up to start the discard pile.
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Player 1 takes the first turn of every hand in the first game. The opening
seat alternates between games: Player 2 opens every hand of the next game,
and so on round the table.
•
Any red 3s dealt into a hand are placed face-up for a bonus and replaced
from the stock.
A turn
Each turn has three parts:
1.
Draw — take the top two cards of the stock, or pick up the entire
discard pile (see below).
2.
Meld (optional) — lay down or extend melds, add wild cards, or place a
red 3.
3.
Discard — end your turn by placing one card on the discard pile.
Hand and foot
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Play only from your hand at first.
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When your hand becomes empty and your foot still has cards, you pick up your
foot — those cards become your new hand.
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Going out requires emptying both hand and foot.
Melding
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A meld is three or more cards of the same rank (you cannot meld runs).
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A meld may include wild cards, but wilds may never outnumber naturals in
that meld.
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Partners build on the same melds — there is one meld per rank per team.
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Laying off adds matching naturals from your hand to a meld your team
already has on the table.
Red 3s and black 3s
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Red 3s are bonus cards worth 100 points each. Place them face-up as
soon as you draw them and take a replacement card.
•
Black 3s are "stop" cards: after a black 3 is discarded, the next player
cannot take the discard pile. They are not melded in normal play.
Taking the discard pile
Instead of drawing from the stock you may pick up the whole discard pile if
the top card is a natural card and you can immediately use it — that is, you hold
two matching natural cards, or your team already has a meld of that rank. The
top card is not a black 3 (stop card).
Books (Canastas)
A book is a meld of seven or more cards.
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Clean (natural) book — seven naturals, no wilds: 500-point bonus.
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Dirty (mixed) book — contains a wild: 300-point bonus.
Your team must complete at least one clean book and one dirty book before
you may empty both hand and foot to go out (which earns the 100-point go-out
bonus).
Scoring a hand
When the hand ends, each team totals:
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+ the face value of every card it has melded,
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+ book bonuses (500 / 300),
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+ red 3 bonuses (100 each),
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+ 100 for going out (only if the team met the clean + dirty book
requirement),
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− the face value of all cards left in the hands and feet of everyone
on the team.
Deal again until a team reaches 10,000 points.
How this implementation differs from kitchen-table Hand and Foot
This boardlang version keeps the flavour and scoring of Hand and Foot while
simplifying a few of the fiddlier rules so the game stays approachable:
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Taking the pile always requires two matching naturals (or an existing
meld) and moves the whole pile into your hand; separate frozen/unfrozen pickup
conditions are folded into this single rule.
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Going out requires emptying hand and foot, and the discard/meld options
that would empty both are blocked until the team has one clean and one dirty
book. There is no "may I go out?" partner request.
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The initial-meld minimum-point requirement (which scales with your score) is
not enforced.
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Melding lays down every natural of the chosen rank at once, and wild cards are
added to an existing team meld one at a time (never exceeding the natural
count).
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Deck count is fixed at four decks + eight jokers for every player count
(2–4).