Canasta is a card game that originated in Uruguay. It is generally played with 4 players, two sets of partners. There are variations of the game that allow other numbers of players. The game is played with two decks of cards.
The dealer is chosen by a draw of cards. The highest ranked card deals first and the dealer rotates clockwise after this. The dealer takes the two decks of cards including the four jokers and shuffles them. He deals 11 cards to each player in a clockwise motion. The remaining are placed in the middle of the table with the top card flipped starting a separate pile. The flipped card cannot be a three or a wild card. Wild cards are jokers and twos.
The first player in the game is seated left of the dealer, after this player the play goes clockwise. A player draws from the stack in the center of the table or may pick up the entire discard pile. A player may start his meld at this time. Meld is at least three like valued cards or a mix with wild cards. Natural cards have to be the majority. The initial laydown has to meet point requirements. If your score is 0 to 1495 the minimum point total of initial melt is 50. If you have points between 1500 to 2995 the initial meld would be 90. For scores above 3000 you need to start with 120 meld.
Object of the game is making canastas. This is a stack of like valued cards numbering 7. There are natural canastas and mixed canastas, that have wild cards. Scoring for the game is based on all cards played plus bonuses. Bonuses include going out for 100 points, each mixed canasta 300 points, each natural canasta 500 points, each red three 100 points, all 4 red threes 800 points. You take these points and minus the held card values. If you do not have a canasta all points are negative.
To go out you have to play all the cards in your hand. This play must include a discard. If all cards from the draw pile are used the discard pile is flipped over.
