Hand and Foot is a Canasta-style card game played with five or six decks plus jokers, and the aim is to be first to meld away your 11-card Hand and then your 11-card Foot. You can only go out once your side has at least one clean book and one dirty book, and you have to finish by discarding your last card.
Everything on this page comes from the Bicycle Learn to Play page for Hand and Foot, as of November 2026. Bicycle describes it as a variation of Canasta that became popular in the United States in the 1950s, and lists it for ages 13 and up. The page leaves the player count blank, but it's clear that melds belong to the team, so I've written this for people playing in teams. If you've never played the parent game, my guide on how to play Canasta covers it.
Hand and Foot at a glance
Each player gets two piles of 11 cards: the Hand, which you play first, and the Foot, which waits face down until the Hand is gone. Cards leave your hand by being melded, which means laid face up in sets of the same rank. When a set reaches seven cards it closes into a book, and books are where the big points are.
A game is four rounds, each with a minimum meld total that rises every round, and the highest score after the fourth round wins.
Decks, deal and card values
The game uses five to six decks of cards with the jokers left in. Here's the deal, step by step:
- Shuffle all the decks together thoroughly.
- Deal each player 11 cards. This first set is the Hand, and you can pick it up and look at it.
- Deal each player a second set of 11 cards. This is the Foot, and it stays face down until your Hand is used up.
- Put the rest of the cards in the centre of the table. That's the Stock.
- Turn the top Stock card face up to start the discard pile. If it's a red three, a deuce or a joker, it goes back into the pile and another card is turned.
| Card | Points |
|---|---|
| Joker (wild) | 50 |
| Deuce (wild) | 20 |
| Ace | 20 |
| Eight through King | 10 each |
| Three through Seven | 5 each |
Jokers and deuces are the wild cards. Threes are the odd ones out: red and black threes can't go into melds at all. A red three you draw goes straight down and you draw a replacement, and a black three on top of the discard pile stops anyone picking up the pile.
The four rounds and their minimum melds
Before your team can start laying down cards in a round, the first cards you put down have to add up to at least that round's minimum, using the face values above. You can put down several melds at once to get there.
| Round | Minimum to start play | One meld that gets there |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | At least 50 | Five kings |
| 2 | At least 90 | Four kings and a joker |
| 3 | At least 120 | Four aces and two deuces |
| 4 | At least 150 | Five aces and a joker |
The right-hand column is my own arithmetic from the card values, not combinations the rules page lists. Five kings at 10 each makes exactly 50. Four kings and a joker makes exactly 90, and it's a legal dirty meld because it has four natural kings. The pattern to notice is that the bar climbs quickly, so a joker or a pair of deuces in your Hand becomes far more useful in the later rounds.
What happens on your turn
- Everyone picks up their Hand, and play starts with the player on the dealer's left.
- Draw two cards from the Stock. If one of them is a red three, put it down at once and draw a replacement.
- If you'd rather, you have the option of picking up the discard pile, as long as you meet the conditions in the section below.
- Lay down any melds you can, or add cards to your team's melds already on the table, once your team has reached the round's minimum.
- Discard one card to end your turn.
When your Hand runs out, you need to announce that you're playing your Foot, then pick it up and carry on. If you lay out every card except one, you can discard that last card, and that ends your turn.
Clean books, dirty books
A meld is 3 to 7 cards of the same rank, laid face up. It can't have fewer than three cards or more than seven, and it belongs to the team, not the player who put it down. Anyone on the team can keep adding to it until it reaches seven cards, at which point it's closed and becomes a book.
| Book | What's in it | Bonus |
|---|---|---|
| Red (clean) | Seven natural cards of the same rank, no wild cards | 500 |
| Black (dirty) | At least four natural cards of the rank, plus wild cards | 300 |
A clean book is seven natural cards of the same rank with no wild cards, and it's worth 500 points. A dirty meld needs at least four natural cards of the rank and at least one wild card. The rules page gives five nines and two wild cards as its example. A meld can't be made of wild cards alone.
When a book closes, stack all seven cards together. Put a red card on top for a clean book and a black card on top for a dirty one, and on a dirty book turn a wild card so it shows.
Picking up the discard pile
Picking up the pile means taking the top seven cards from the discard pile. It's a big swing, so the rules page attaches conditions to it:
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- The top card of the discard pile can't be a black three.
- You must hold two cards of the same rank as that top card.
- Those two cards and the top discard have to be laid out straight away, and you can add other cards from your hand to the meld.
- Your team must already have melded in this round, or you must be melding as you pick up.
Here's the rule people miss. Only the top card of the discard pile counts towards the round's minimum, along with any cards you add from your hand; the other six cards you pick up don't. Wild cards from your hand can help you get there.
So say it's round 1, the top discard is a king and you're holding two kings. Those three kings alone won't reach 50, even if there's a joker sitting among the six cards underneath. You'd need to lay down more from your own hand in the same go, such as three aces, to open.
Going out and adding up the score
To go out, your side needs at least one clean book and one dirty book, and you have to get rid of every card. The last one has to be a discard: you can't simply run out of cards by melding them all.
When a player goes out, the round is over and everyone scores it like this:
- Record the meld count first, which is the bonus for each book.
- Add the second count, which is the value of every card you've played, using the card table above.
- Take off the value of any cards still left in your hand, because they count against you.
After four rounds, the person or team with the highest score wins. A clean book is worth 500 and a dirty one 300 before you even count the cards inside them, which is why closing books matters far more than scattering small melds around the table.
Where tables get stuck
- Counting the whole picked-up pile towards the minimum. Only the top card counts.
- Trying to go out with only dirty books. You need a clean one and a dirty one.
- Melding your last card instead of discarding it. Going out ends with a discard.
- Building a meld from wild cards. It can't be all wild, and a dirty meld needs four natural cards.
- Forgetting to announce the Foot. Say it out loud when you pick it up.
What I'd teach first
I'd teach the deal, the card values and the difference between clean and dirty books before anything else, because those three explain most of the scoring. I'd treat round 1 as the learning round, since its 50 minimum is the easiest to reach, and I'd walk everyone through the two-matching-cards condition before the first pile pickup. I'd skip any tactics talk about the Foot until everyone can go out the right way: a clean book, a dirty book and a final discard.
If it's just the two of you tonight, my list of card games for two players has plenty of options, and if you like the melding side of this one, learning Pinochle is another good card game to add to the rotation.
Frequently asked questions
How many cards do you deal in Hand and Foot?
Each player gets two piles of 11 cards: the Hand, which you play first, and the Foot, which waits face down until the Hand is gone.
What is a clean book in Hand and Foot?
A clean book is seven natural cards of the same rank with no wild cards, and it's worth 500 points.
How do you go out in Hand and Foot?
To go out, your side needs at least one clean book and one dirty book, and you have to get rid of every card. The last one has to be a discard: you can't simply run out of cards by melding them all.
How many decks of cards do you need for Hand and Foot?
The game uses five to six decks of cards with the jokers left in.
