What is Modern American Canasta?
Modern American Canasta is a newer form of the partnership game that has grown popular in parts of the United States. It keeps the heart of canasta, melding cards of one rank and building seven-card canastas, but makes almost every step harder: hands are bigger, the first meld must be worth far more, wild cards are rationed, and a side needs two canastas before it may go out.
It also brings new kinds of melds. Twos and jokers can be melded on their own as a wild-card canasta, and clean canastas of sevens or aces are worth 2,500 points, while leaving one of these melds unfinished costs as much. Every three, red or black, is laid out at once, and the discard pile can only ever be taken with a natural pair.
Here it is played by four players in two partnerships, partners sitting opposite. The rules follow the published description of Modern American Canasta. A few parts of that description are not played here: the special hands that go out without canastas, the turn card near the bottom of the stock, play on the discard pile after the stock runs out, the face-down final discard and keeping a three back for a special hand. You may ask your partner whether to go out once a hand, straight after drawing, and a no stops you going out that turn.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Canasta | Modern American Canasta |
|---|---|---|
| Players | Standard CanastaTwo, three or four. Four play in two partnerships; with two or three, each plays alone. | Modern American CanastaExactly four, in two partnerships with partners sitting opposite. |
| Deal | Standard CanastaEleven cards each with four players (fifteen with two, thirteen with three). One card is turned up to start the discard pile. | Modern American CanastaThirteen cards each. The discard pile starts empty. |
| Drawing | Standard CanastaOne card from the stock with four players. With two or three players you draw two and still discard only one. | Modern American CanastaOne card from the stock. |
| Threes | Standard CanastaRed threes are laid out at once and replaced from the stock: 100 each, 800 for all four, counted against a side that has not melded. A discarded black three stops the next player taking the pile. | Modern American CanastaEvery three, red or black, is laid out and replaced; threes are never melded or discarded. Each colour scores 100, 300, 500 or 1,000 for one to four threes: against a side with no canasta, nothing for a side with one, for a side with two or more. A three drawn as the last stock card stays in hand, counts 5 against and ends the hand. |
| First meld | Standard CanastaAt least 15 points with a negative score, 50 from 0, 90 from 1,500 and 120 from 3,000. The top card of the discard pile can count towards it. | Modern American CanastaAt least 125 points below 3,000 (also with a negative score), 155 from 3,000 and 180 from 5,000, counted from cards in your hand only. It must include a clean meld of three or more natural cards or a meld of wild cards, and several melds can be laid together to reach it. A canasta melded straight from hand needs no minimum. |
| Melds | Standard CanastaThree or more cards of a rank, with more natural cards than wild cards and at most three wild cards. A meld can keep growing past seven cards. | Modern American CanastaThree to seven cards of a rank, with at most two wild cards. A meld stops at seven cards, and once either side completes a natural canasta, nobody may meld that rank again. |
| Adding wild cards | Standard CanastaWild cards can join any meld as long as it keeps more natural cards than wild cards and no more than three wild cards. | Modern American CanastaAfter your side's first meld, wild cards go only into a meld of five or more natural cards, whether it is new or already on the table, or into a meld of wild cards. |
| Melds of wild cards | Standard CanastaNot allowed: every meld needs natural cards. | Modern American CanastaThree to seven twos and jokers can form a meld of their own. While it is unfinished, your side cannot put wild cards in any other meld. |
| Sevens and aces | Standard CanastaMelded like any other rank. | Modern American CanastaSevens never take wild cards. Aces take wild cards only in the first meld. |
| Taking the discard pile | Standard CanastaWith two cards from your hand that meld with the top card: a natural pair while the pile is frozen (until your side has melded, or after a wild card was discarded), otherwise a matching card and a wild card will do. Never when a black three or a wild card is on top. | Modern American CanastaAlways with a natural pair from your hand matching the top card. A side that has not melded lays its first meld from hand in the same move. The pair may join your side's meld of that rank only while it has three or four cards. |
| Discarding | Standard CanastaAny card but a red three. A discarded wild card freezes the pile. | Modern American CanastaWild cards only when going out, or from a hand of nothing but wild cards. Threes are never discarded, and your melds must always leave you a card to discard. Onto an empty pile, an ace or a seven goes only when you hold no other natural card, and a card of a closed rank only when nothing else may. |
| Going out | Standard CanastaYour side needs one canasta (two in the two-player game). Going out earns 100, or 200 if you meld your whole hand in one turn without having melded before. | Modern American CanastaYour side needs two canastas, and you finish with a discard. Going out earns 100, with no extra bonus for going out in one turn. |
| Canasta bonuses | Standard CanastaMixed canasta 300, natural canasta 500. | Modern American CanastaMixed canasta 300, natural canasta 500, clean canasta of sevens or aces 2,500. Wild-card canastas: seven twos 3,000, four jokers with three twos 2,500, any other 2,000. |
| Penalties | Standard CanastaCards left in hand count against you, and a side that has not melded loses its red-three bonus instead of scoring it. | Modern American CanastaCards left in hand count against you, and so do the melded cards of a side with no canasta. An unfinished meld of sevens or clean aces costs 2,500, an unfinished wild-card meld 2,000 (2,500 with all four jokers). A player left holding three or more aces, or three or more sevens, costs 1,500 for each such set. |
| Winning score | Standard Canasta5,000 points (7,500 with three players). The setup can set 2,500, 5,000, 7,500 or 10,000 instead. | Modern American Canasta8,500 points. The setup can set 2,500, 5,000, 7,500 or 10,000 instead. |
History
Canasta is said to have begun in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1939, and spread from there to Argentina, the United States and the rest of the world. Its rules were standardised in North America around 1950, and in the 1950s the game was so fashionable that it threatened for a while to displace contract bridge.
The modern American game came later. It is a newer version that takes some features from two other canasta games, Pennies from Heaven and Hand and Foot, and it has significant and growing numbers of players in New York, New Jersey and Florida, who prefer its stricter rules and find the classic game too easy by comparison. The rules have kept changing: the rule of five is a fairly recent development, and the former American Canasta Association briefly published a partial description of the rules on its website in 1999. The rules here reflect the game as it was played around 2017.