Then they have to take the rest of the discard pile. If the player wants, they might also take the top card of the discard pile and use it in a meld. A meld is an optional move after drawing.Ī player is allowed to draw the top card of the stock in their turn. After that, the players play in a clockwise direction, starting from the left. The first dealer sits to the left of the player. This needs to happen with or without wild cards. What are melds? It is a combination of three or more cards of the same rank. The primary objective of Canasta is to form melds. Canasta quickly overtook Bridge and sold specialty decks, and numerous books were written. The game became instantly successful and received worldwide recognition during the 1950s. Santos and Serrato used baskets to throw their cards in baskets called “canasta” in Spanish, and that’s where the name comes from. They wanted to create a quicker game than Bridge. Segundo Santos and Alberto Serrato invented Canasta.

What’s more, you can also play this game with several players. Learn the history, the objective, the gameplay, and how to play Canasta in this blog.

It is a game belonging to the rummy family, and it was the most popular game in America during the 1950s. Canasta is a popular name when it comes to playing card games.

Popular game with 162 cards