The discard pile is frozen to a team until they lay down a meld, and is frozen to everyone if the top card is a Black Three or if there is a wild card anywhere in the pile. The discard pile may also become ‘frozen’ - a frozen discard pile can only be taken by a player who already holds two cards of the same rank as the top card of the discard pile. These cannot form their own melds, but can be used as cards of any rank in other melds. Initial Meld Requirement for Current Score The first meld a team makes in a round must have more than a certain value, determined by the team’s current score. Players cannot lay off on opponents’ melds.Īt the end of their turn, players must discard a card from their hand into the discard pile. Teams share melds and can play cards from their hand onto their existing melds. Melds are made up of at least three cards of the same value. They then try to construct groups of cards called melds and lay down valid melds face up on the table in front of them. Alternatively, they may also pick up all the cards in the discard pile, if they can use the top card of the stock in a meld or lay it off immediately. The top card of the draw pile is turned face up to begin the discard pile.Ī player begins their turn by drawing a card from the draw pile. The rest are placed in a draw pile face down. Play Multiplayer Canasta Online The Deck and DealingĬanasta uses two standard decks, plus a set number of Jokers.Įach player is dealt a hand of 15 cards.

A player cannot empty their hand entirely until their team has a set number of canastas A canasta is a meld containing at least 7 cards.

Black Threes can only be melded if the player has only Black Threes in hand If a Black Three is on the top of the discard pile, the pile cannot be picked up.Red Threes are played immediately and score bonus points.Teams score points by creating melds (sets of cards of the same rank).

American canasta online game