Build same-rank melds with your partner, control the discard pile, complete a seven-card canasta, and reach 5,000 points across successive hands.
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In Classic Canasta, two partnerships of two players each compete with a 108-card pack made from two standard 52-card decks and four jokers. You sit opposite your computer partner, Rory, against Alex and Sam, building shared melds on the way to 5,000 points. A meld of seven or more cards of the same rank is a canasta, and every hand turns on making them.
The object is to meld cards of the same rank with your partner, complete seven-card canastas so that one of you can go out, and be the first partnership to 5,000 points over a series of hands.
Each player is dealt 11 cards, and one card is turned face up to start the discard pile (if that first upcard is a wild card or a red three, more cards are turned on top of it until one is neither, and the pile starts the hand frozen). Any red threes (3♥ 3♦) in your hand are placed face up on the table automatically and replaced from the stock.
On every turn you follow three steps in order:
4 through Ace), or add natural and wild cards to melds your partnership already has. After a stock draw this step is optional.A valid meld needs at least two natural cards and may include at most three wild cards (Jokers and 2s). Your partnership shares one meld per rank, so once Rory opens a meld of Kings, any Kings you play go into that same group.
No. This is Classic Canasta: 11 cards to each player and a game to 5,000. Modern American Canasta deals 13 cards and plays to 8,500, with many other rule changes, and none of them are mixed in here.
Every card in a meld (or left stuck in your hand when someone goes out) has a fixed point value, while completed seven-card melds and red threes earn partnership bonuses:
| Card or bonus | Points |
|---|---|
| Joker | 50 |
Ace or 2 (wild) | 20 |
K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8 | 10 |
7, 6, 5, 4, or black 3 (3♠ 3♣) | 5 |
| Natural (pure) canasta, 7+ cards of one rank with no wilds | +500 bonus |
| Mixed (dirty) canasta, 7+ cards including 1 to 3 wilds | +300 bonus |
Red three (3♥ 3♦) | +100 each, or +800 for all four (counts negative if your side never opens) |
| Going out / Going out concealed | +100 / +200 total |
Before either partner can lay down the team’s first meld of a hand, the face values of the cards placed on the table in that opening turn must reach a minimum based on your partnership’s cumulative score at the start of the hand:
| Your partnership’s score | Minimum opening meld |
|---|---|
| Below 0 | 15 points |
| 0 to 1,495 | 50 points |
| 1,500 to 2,995 | 90 points |
| 3,000 or more | 120 points |
Only the individual card values in the opening meld count toward that minimum. Canasta and red-three bonuses do not. If you capture the discard pile to open, the top card of the pile counts toward the minimum along with the cards you play from your hand, but the rest of the pile buried underneath cannot be counted until after you meet the requirement. Next to each team’s score, a short note reads “open” once the team has opened, and until then shows what it needs, such as “opens at 50”.
You may pick up the discard pile only when you can meld its top card straight away, and taking it can put a dozen or more cards in your hand at once. The pile is labelled Frozen or Blocked on the table whenever a restriction applies.
Once your side has opened and the pile is not frozen, you may take it if its top card is a natural 4 through Ace and you can either meld it with two matching naturals from your hand, meld it with one matching natural plus a wild card, or add it straight to a meld of that rank your partnership already has.
The pile freezes for both sides as soon as anyone discards a wild card onto it, and it starts the hand frozen if a wild card or red three was turned up on the deal. It also counts as frozen for a side that has not made its initial meld yet. While the pile is frozen, you can only pick it up by playing a natural pair from your hand that matches the top card.
A black three (3♠ 3♣) or a wild card on top can't be picked up at all. The black three only stops the next player, though. Once another card covers it, the pile goes back to whatever state it was in before, whereas a wild card leaves the whole pile frozen.
A partnership must complete at least one seven-card canasta before either partner may empty their hand. You go out by melding your last card, or by melding down to one card and discarding it.
Going out concealed earns 200 instead of 100. You have to meld your entire hand in a single turn, including a complete canasta of your own, without having melded anything earlier in the hand and without adding to a meld your partner already had on the table. If you drew from the stock that turn, a concealed go-out doesn’t have to meet the opening minimum.
Black threes (3♠ 3♣) can’t be melded during normal play and never take wild cards, but on the turn you go out you may lay down three or four of them.
When the stock runs out, play carries on only while players take the discard pile. If the pile is unfrozen and its top card matches a rank your side has melded, you must take it. As soon as a player can’t or won’t take it, the hand ends.
Once your side has opened, resist melding every three-of-a-kind immediately. Laying down three 9s on the table scores 30 points now, but keeping two 9s in your hand lets you unlock a 15-card frozen discard pile the moment an opponent has to throw a 9.
Check Rory’s melds before spending a 2 or Joker. Adding a wild card to a five- or six-card natural meld permanently turns it into a mixed meld, cutting its completion bonus from 500 down to 300. Save wild cards for opening high-minimum hands (90 or 120 points) or finishing a rank where several naturals are already dead in the opponents’ melds.
Once a partnership crosses 3,000 points, opening takes 120 points in a single turn, which usually means holding back Aces, 2s and jokers until they can go down together. When the other side is past 3,000 and still hasn’t opened, they can’t lay anything down, so every card in their hands will count against them, and so will their red threes. Going out quickly, even with a single canasta, catches them holding all of it.
Build same-rank melds with your partner, control the discard pile, complete a seven-card canasta, and reach 5,000 points across successive hands.
Play Canasta Card Game free against adjustable AI in your browser. No download or account.
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