Card Games
Classic Partnership Canasta - Play Online
Team up with a computer partner, build natural and mixed canastas, and race two computer opponents to 5,000 points.
Preparing your table.
Rules, controls and scoring
How to play
Your partnership
Play Classic Canasta with North as your computer partner against West and East. All three computer players use their own hand and public information only. Each round uses two standard English-pattern decks plus four jokers, 108 cards. Eleven cards are dealt to each seat. The first dealer is random, then the deal rotates clockwise. A match ends after a round when either team reaches 5,000; the higher total wins, or equal totals draw.
Draw, meld, discard
Draw one stock card, optionally meld cards, then discard one. Select cards with a tap, click, Space or Enter. Select matching natural cards and any wilds, then choose Meld selected. You can also select cards and activate an existing team meld. For only wild cards, use the Wilds as selector. Prepare multiple groups to meet your opening target, then Commit melds. Undo staging and Clear reverse uncommitted preparation only. Committed moves, revealed draws and completed turns cannot be undone.
Drag a card or selected group to Prepare your melds, an existing team meld, or Discard selected. A drag starts after a short movement; release outside a legal target to cancel. Escape first cancels a drag, then selection or preparation. Arrow keys move between cards; Home and End jump to either end. The scroll arrows reveal large hands. Every drag has a select-and-button alternative. Use the site's shared fullscreen control for focused play; the table can scroll in short windows.
Melds and the opening requirement
Melds are sets of at least three equal ranks from 4 through ace, including at least two natural cards. Twos and jokers are wild, with at most three wilds in any meld. Classic rules here allow two naturals plus three wilds. Each partnership has only one meld of each rank. A meld of seven or more is a canasta; further cards may be added. A natural canasta has no wilds, and adding a wild changes it to mixed.
Your first committed melds in a round must total 15 points with a negative match score, 50 at 0 to 1,499, 90 at 1,500 to 2,999, or 120 at 3,000 or more. Only card points count, not bonuses. After your team opens, there is no minimum. You may open below the threshold only when drawing from stock and going out concealed with a canasta. If this exception leaves one card, it is automatically discarded as part of going out.
Taking the discard pile
Take pile prepares the top discard's required meld before any cards move. Add other groups if necessary, then Commit pickup. Only the top discard can contribute to the opening total. You cannot use buried cards to qualify. Before your team opens, or when a wild or initial red three freezes the pile, you need two matching natural cards from your hand. Otherwise, the top card can join an existing team meld, or combine with two matching naturals, or one matching natural and a wild. A top wild or any three blocks pickup. A one-card hand cannot take a one-card discard pile, even with a canasta. Taking the pile removes the freeze.
Threes, going out and stock exhaustion
Red threes go to your team automatically. Those dealt or drawn from stock are replaced; those taken in the discard pile are not. Black threes block only the next pickup, they do not freeze the pile. Three or four black threes may be melded without wilds only while going out; if one card remains it is discarded automatically. You need a team canasta to empty your hand. Without one you must leave a card after discarding. Going out needs no partner consultation in this game, which is a legal Classic option.
Going out concealed earns an extra 100 if you had never melded before this turn, did not add to a pre-existing partner meld, and made a new canasta. With no stock, you must take an unfrozen top discard matching an existing team meld. Otherwise you may take a legal pile, or choose End round. Drawing the last stock card as a red three ends the round immediately.
Points
Jokers: 50. Aces and twos: 20. Kings through eights: 10. Sevens through fours and black threes: 5. Add melded card values, natural canastas at 500 each, mixed canastas at 300 each, and 100 for going out (200 concealed). Each red three is 100, or 800 total for all four; these become negative if your team never melded. Subtract every card still in both partners' hands. The round scorecard shows each component.
New Game clears the match and shuffles fresh cards. Restart replays this match's original first deal and clears its scores. Progress is kept only in memory; this game does not save data or make network requests. Rules follow Pagat's Classic Canasta. Card artwork: letele playing-cards, CC0 1.0, embedded from revision 865a78e with distinct artwork for all 12 courts.