Join us on First & Third Mondays each Month — No need to rsvp!

The Social Club Hand and Foot group plays at Mountain Shadows in the open card room. Hand and Foot is a fun card game similar to Canasta. Four (sometimes five!) rounds are played using five decks of cards. We play four persons to a table when possible, although we are flexible and can set up tables of three or six. Our group is laidback and friendly — we’re there for the fun of the game and great company — the more players we have the merrier!

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If you’ve not played Hand & Foot, it’s easy to learn and we’ll be happy to teach you. There are many variations of this game, so here are the rules the Social Club uses to play this card game — you can download and print the “Cheat Sheet” here: Social Club H&F Rules

Players:  The game is typically played with four players consisting of two teams of two. The game can also be played with an odd number of players with each person keeping an individual score.

The Deal:  Play starts with 5 decks of cards including jokers.  Cards are divided into two piles with space between them for discards.  Each player will draw one card from either pile and the player with the highest card will go first.  All players will attempt to pick up 26 cards and place them into two piles of 13.  Players will turn over the top card in each pile and decide which pile will be kept as the “Hand” and the other pile will be passed to the left and it will become that player’s “Foot”.

BONUS:  If a player picks up EXACTLY 26 cards on the first try
 a 100 bonus points gets added to the team score

The Object:  The object of the game is to get the most points.

CardPoints

Minimum Points”MELD” for Each Round:  A minimum number of points are needed the first time the team “MELDS” onto the table. Once a player has the minimum points down, the player and his partner have no minimum for the rest of that round.

• Round 1- 50 points 
• Round 2 – 90 points
• Round 3 – 120 points
• Round 4 – 150 points 
• Round 5 -180  points (Optional… if time allows)

Wild Cards:  Jokers and Deuce’s are Wild cards. In any meld you can have no more than 2 Wild cards.  Melds with Wild cards are “Dirty.”  We allow a meld of 2 wilds with 2 naturals.  A team can start a meld entirely of Wild Cards which, if completed, is worth 1500 points.  Players can start additional “Dirty” books with or without completions of the “Wild” book.  When adding a Wild card to a book that is started, the person playing the wild card needs specify where to place that wild card.

Three’s:  Red 3’s are not to be used as part of a player’s hand.  All red 3’s are placed on the table and a replacement card is drawn.  This also applies to Red 3’s in the player’s Foot.  At the end of the round those Red 3’s are worth 100 points.  Black 3’s are worth 5 points, and should be used as Discards as other players cannot pick up a Discard pile covered by a Black 3.

Play – Picking Up and Discarding: Play proceeds clockwise. Player draws 2 cards, one from each pile. Player exchanges any Red 3’s for a replacement card. Player may meld, if desired, and turn ends with a discard.  Instead of drawing 2 cards, player has the option to pick up cards from discard pile.  Player must have at least 2 matching cards in hand.  Player must pick up exactly 7 cards from discard pile.  The player must put the top card and the matching two cards from his hand down as points on the table. If this is the first time the team is melding for that round player has to have the minimum points required without counting the card picked up from Discard pile.

Picking up the Foot:There are two ways to get into your Foot. One is to play all cards in the hand WITH NO DISCARD.  Player then picks up “Foot” and continues to play as desired. The second way is to put down all cards in the “Hand” and DISCARD.  The player picks up Foot but doesn’t begin using it until his next turn. If someone “goes out” before a player gets into the Foot, all the points in the Foot are negative points.

Going Out:  In order to “go out” a player must play all the cards in the Hand and Foot with at least 2 Clean books and 2 Dirty books… a Wild book is optional.  Players can go out with or without a discard.  When going out the partner must have picked up and played from the Foot at least once.  A player may or may not ask permission from partner. 

Scoring:  Once a player “goes out,” play ends and points are added. 

Base Score = total of all books (Books and Red 3’s)

Count = the total count of all cards minus the total count of all unplayed cards in “Hand” and “Foot”

Base + Count = Score