Rules

How to play Hand and Foot

Updated October 2026 · 2–6 players · 30 to 45 minutes a deal

Hand and Foot is a card game for a group or a family, and a cousin of Canasta. Everyone gets two piles of cards. You play from the first pile, the hand, until it is used up. Then you pick up the second pile, the foot, and play from that. You put down groups of cards of the same rank, such as seven kings, and the biggest bonuses go to groups of seven cards.

What you are trying to do

A game is played over four deals. A deal is one dealing of the cards and everything played with it. In each deal you collect cards of the same rank and put them on the table in groups. Cards on the table score points for you. Cards still in your hand or foot when the deal ends take points away. The best prize is a book: a group of seven cards. After the fourth deal, add up your four scores. The highest total wins.

The cards and the decks

Use more decks than there are players. Each deck is a standard 52-card deck with its two jokers, so 54 cards. The number of decks is the number of players plus one.

Shuffle all the decks together. The cards fall into four kinds, and you need to know them before anything else makes sense:

• Natural cards are the cards from 4 up to ace. A group is built from them.
• Wild cards are the 2s and the jokers. A wild card can stand in for a natural card of any rank.
• Red threes (3♥ and 3♦) are bonus cards. They are never played in a group.
• Black threes (3♠ and 3♣) cannot go in a group either. They are only thrown away.

There are no runs in this game, so the order of the cards does not matter. Only the rank counts: a group is always cards of the same rank.

The hand and the foot

Deal every player two separate piles of 11 cards, one pile after the other, a card at a time around the table. Keep the two piles apart.

• The first pile is your hand. Pick it up and look at it. You play from it.
• The second pile is your foot. Leave it face down on the table in front of you. Nobody looks at it, including you, until your hand is used up.

The rest of the cards form the face-down draw pile in the middle. Turn the top card face up beside it to start the discard pile. If that card is a wild card or a three, put it at the bottom of the draw pile and turn up another. The player to the dealer’s left goes first, and play goes clockwise.

Red threes at the start. If your hand holds red threes, put them face up on the table in front of you before the first turn. Each one is worth 100 points to you. Draw a replacement card for each one.

Picking up the foot. As soon as your hand is used up, even in the middle of a turn, pick up your foot, look at it, and carry on from it. Any red threes in the foot go on the table at once, and you draw a replacement for each. From then on the foot is your hand.

Your turn

On your turn you take cards, put down what you can, and discard one card.

1. Take cards. Either draw two cards from the draw pile, one at a time, or take the top seven cards of the discard pile (the rules are in the next section). If you draw a red three, put it on the table and draw another card in its place.
2. Put down groups. Put down as many groups as you can, and add cards to the groups you already have. You may also put down nothing.
3. Discard. End your turn by putting one card face up on top of the discard pile.

If you use up your hand during a turn, pick up your foot at once and carry on with it. You still end the turn with a discard.

The discard pile

Everybody can see the discard pile. Instead of drawing two cards, you may take the top seven cards of it, but only if all of this is true:

• The pile has at least seven cards.
• The top card is a natural card. A wild card or a three on top blocks the pile.
• Your first groups are already on the table (see "The minimum for your first groups" below).
• You hold, in your hand and not in your foot, two natural cards of the same rank as the top card. Wild cards do not count.

Put those two cards and the top card on the table as a group of that rank, or add them to your unfinished group of that rank (the group must not end up with more than seven cards). The other six cards of the seven go into your hand. The rest of the pile stays where it is. Then carry on with your turn: put down more groups if you can, and discard.

A black three on top. Throwing away a black three means the next player cannot take the pile. It is the safe card to throw away when the pile is big. Once another card is thrown on top of it, the pile can be taken again.

Putting down groups

A group is three to seven cards of the same rank, such as 9♥ 9♠ 9♦. There are no runs: 4-5-6 is not a group. You keep your own groups in front of you, one for each rank that is not finished yet. When you put down more cards of that rank later, you add them to that group. You can never add cards to another player’s groups.

• A group has at least three cards and at most seven.
• Wild cards may stand in for the rank (see the next section).
• You may start a second group of a rank only when your first group of that rank has reached seven cards and is finished.

Every card in a group scores its points when the deal ends:

Wild cards

A 2 or a joker stands in for a natural card of any rank, but two limits keep groups honest:

• A group must always have more natural cards than wild cards.
• A group may have at most three wild cards.

So two natural cards and one wild card make a group of three. Two natural cards and two wild cards do not, because the natural cards must outnumber the wild cards. A group of seven can have four natural cards and three wild cards, but not three natural cards and four wild cards. A group made only of wild cards is not allowed.

A wild card scores its own points (20 for a 2, 50 for a joker) when it is in a group. It also decides what kind of book you build, as the next section explains.

Books

A group of seven cards is a book. A book is finished: nothing more is added to it. It earns a bonus on top of the points on its cards.

A clean book is worth more, so a clean group of six waits for a natural card. A single wild card added to a clean group turns it into a dirty one, and the bonus drops from 500 to 300. Keep groups clean until you have a clean book, because you need both kinds to go out.

The minimum for your first groups

In each deal, the first groups you put down must be worth a minimum number of points together. The minimum goes up from deal to deal:

• Only the points on the cards count (wild cards count their own points). Bonuses do not.
• You may put down several groups at once to reach the minimum, but they must all go down together, in one go, to count toward it.
• Until your first groups are down you cannot add to groups (you have none) and you cannot take the discard pile. Every player has their own minimum to meet.

Example. In the first deal you hold three kings and three queens. Kings are worth 10 each and queens 10 each, so together they are worth 60 points. That meets the minimum of 50, so you put both groups down. In the third deal the same two groups would not be enough: the minimum is 120.

Going out

You go out when you have no cards left, and that ends the deal. You may go out only when all of this is true:

• You have picked up your foot and played all of it.
• You have at least one clean book and at least one dirty book on the table.

You may finish by putting down your last cards, or by discarding the last one. Until you can go out, you must keep at least two cards in your hand after picking up the foot, so that you always have a card to discard. Going out earns 100 points.

A deal also ends if the draw pile cannot give a player the two cards they need, and that player cannot take the discard pile. Nobody gets the bonus for going out then, and everyone scores what they have.

Scoring a deal

When a deal ends, every player scores:

Your score for a deal can be below zero. Add each deal’s score to your running total.

The four deals

A game is four deals. In each deal the first groups must meet that deal’s minimum (50, 90, 120 and 150). The deal passes to the left each time, and the player to the dealer’s left goes first. After the fourth deal, the player with the highest total wins. If the highest totals are equal, the game is a tie.

How this differs from Canasta

If you know Canasta, the groups, the wild cards, the red threes, the black threes and the 500 and 300 bonuses will feel familiar. The differences are these:

• Hand and Foot uses more decks, and every player has two piles: the hand and the foot.
• You draw two cards a turn, not one.
• You take the top seven cards of the discard pile, not the whole pile, and a pair from your hand is always needed.
• A group stops at seven cards. In Canasta a group of seven or more is a canasta and keeps growing.
• To go out you need a clean book and a dirty book and the foot played, not just one canasta.
• The minimum for your first groups rises with each of the four deals, instead of depending on your running total.

Practice a game of Hand and Foot

The rules are simple to read and take a few deals to feel. The practice game plays you against one computer player, each of you on your own, for four deals, with a Hint button and a Coach beside the table.

The practice game follows these rules, with these differences:

• It has two players, so it uses three decks and 162 cards.
• The game picks up your foot for you as soon as your hand is used up, and it will not let you make a move the rules do not allow.
• You put down several groups at once by selecting the cards and pressing one button. If a wild card could go in more than one group, the game puts it in the group that is closest to seven cards.
• A game ends after the fourth deal. If the totals are equal, it is a tie.

Three things beginners get wrong

Adding a wild card to a clean group too early

A wild card in a group of seven makes it a dirty book, and the bonus drops from 500 to 300. Keep one group clean until it is finished, and use your wild cards for the dirty book you need to go out.

Throwing away what the next player is collecting

If the next player has put down their first groups and the discard pile holds seven cards or more, any card they hold two of lets them take the top seven. The discard pile is face up: look at it, and at their groups, before you discard. A black three is always safe.

Leaving the foot alone

You cannot go out until the foot is played, and cards left in it count against you. Put down what you can so that your hand runs out and the foot comes into play.

Questions people ask

Do you need a partner?

No. Everyone can play alone, and this page does. Four players often play in two partnerships; see Common variations.

Can I look at my foot early?

No. The foot stays face down until your hand is used up. That is part of the game: you do not know what you will have to work with.

Is Hand and Foot the same as Canasta?

No. Canasta is the older game that Hand and Foot grew out of. They share many ideas, and the section above lists the differences.

Common variations

Because there is no official rule book, rule sheets disagree. These are the differences we found between the sources we checked, and which way this page goes.

• The size of the hand and the foot — this page uses 11 and 11. Some sheets deal 13 and 13 (usually with five decks and four players in partnerships), and one variation (called Saskatchewan Hand and Foot) deals 11 for the hand and 13 for the foot.
• The number of decks — this page uses one more deck than there are players. Some sheets always use five decks for four players, which is the same rule; others suggest five to seven decks whatever the number of players.
• Taking the discard pile — this page lets you take the top seven cards with a pair from your hand. Some tables let you take the whole pile, some the top five, and some do not allow taking the pile at all (you only draw). On this page you must already have put your first groups down before you can take the pile; rule sheets are often silent about whether taking the pile may count toward the minimum, so agree on it. Some tables freeze the pile when a wild card is thrown, so that it can be taken only with a pair of natural cards.
• How many wild cards a group may have — this page uses “more natural cards than wild cards, and at most three wild cards”. Some sheets allow only one wild card in a group of three to five cards and two in a group of six or seven. Others want at least four natural cards in a group with wild cards in it.
• Groups of wild cards — this page does not allow them. Some tables allow a group of seven wild cards (a “wild book”) with a large bonus, 1,500 points on some sheets, and in some games you need one to go out.
• Book bonuses — 500 for a clean book and 300 for a dirty book is the most common. A lower-scoring version gives 300 and 100.
• Red and black threes — this page gives 100 points for each red three on the table. Some sheets make a red three worth 500 against you if it is left in your hand, or take 100 off if it never reaches the table. A black three left in a hand counts 5 against you on most sheets, and more on a few.
• The minimum for your first groups — 50, 90, 120 and 150 is the most common. One sheet starts at 60.
• What you need to go out — this page asks for one clean book and one dirty book in every deal. Some sheets ask for more as the game goes on (one asks for two clean books and one dirty book in the second deal, and three clean and two dirty in the fourth). Some ask for a clean book and two dirty books, and a partnership game often needs several books plus a wild book and the partner’s permission.
• How you finish — on this page you may put down your last cards or discard the last one. Some sheets say you must finish with a discard.
• The draw pile runs out — this page ends the deal as soon as a player cannot draw two cards and cannot take the discard pile.
• Four players in partnerships — partners play as a team. Each partner keeps a hand and a foot, but the books and groups belong to the team and the scores are added together. Some tables make a player pick up their foot before the partner may go out, and ask the partner “may I go out?” first.

If you like groups but would rather start with an older game, try basic Rummy, Rummy 500, or practice a game of Rummy 500 against the computer.