Teach Yourself Canasta

By Kenneth Konstam

This book is a comprehensive guide to Canasta, part of the rummy family of card games that originated in Uruguay. Contents Include: Definitions; Canasta; The Origin of Canasta; The Pack; Rules for Canasta; Alternative Rules for Canasta; These Situations Will Arise; Canasta for Two; Canasta for Three; Canasta for Four; About Melding; Planning the Attack; Planning the Defence; Summing up the Tactics; The Tactical Value of Red Threes; The Acaba Rule; Conventions; The Ethics of Canasta. This book contains classic material dating back to the 1900s and before. The content has been carefully selected for its interest and relevance to a modern audience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Apr 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781473385849

Book preview

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

TEACH YOURSELF CANASTA

DEFINITIONS

Canasta.

The Spanish word for a basket. The formation of Canastas of seven cards form the object of the game.

A Natural Canasta.

A Canasta made up of seven cards of the same denomination, counting 500.

A Mixed Canasta.

A Canasta made up of between four and six natural cards with the addition of the relevant number of wild cards, counting 300.

A Wild Card.

A Joker or any deuce is termed a Wild Card and can be used to represent any other card in the pack at the option of the player. It has a secondary function and can be used as a discard to freeze the pack.

A Meld.

A combination of three or more cards of the same rank or two or more cards of the same rank together with a Wild Card. The group so formed being placed face upwards on the table in front of the player.

A Base.

A combination of four cards forms the Base of a Canasta. Although Wild Cards may be used to form a Canasta, these are limited to three in number.

A Legal Meld.

A group of cards which conforms to the definition of a Meld as above.

An Illegal Meld.

A Meld which does not conform to the definition above, e.g. any group of cards containing one card and two Wild Cards or any group containing four Wild Cards.

A Frozen Pack.

A Discard Pile which contains either a Red Three or a Wild Card.

To Freeze the Pack.

A player discards a Wild Card which is placed underneath and at right angles to the Discard Pile.

Red Threes.

The threes of Diamonds and Hearts are termed Red Threes and have a bonus value of one hundred points each or eight hundred points if a partnership holds all four.

Black Threes.

The threes of Clubs and Spades are stop cards and operate for one turn only. They do not freeze the pack.

The Discard Pile.

After the deal is completed the top card of the remainder of the pack is placed face upwards in the middle of the table and constitutes the Discard Pile.

The Stock Pile.

The balance of the cards after the deal, and the card forming the Discard Pile, is placed face downwards in the middle of the table and forms the Stock Pile.

The Upcard.

A term used for the top card of the Discard Pile.

Going Out.

When a player has melded all his cards, he is said to have gone out and the hand is completed, the side going out being entitled to a bonus of 100 points.

Going Out.    Concealed.

When a player melds all his cards in one turn, not having previously made any meld, and at the same time forms a Canasta without adding to any of his partner’s melds, he is said to have gone out concealed and is entitled to a bonus of 200 points.

A Builder.

A term used for any card matching a meld.

A Deuce.

Another name for any two in the pack.

A Trey.

An Americanism for a three.

Responder.

The partner of a player who makes the initial meld for his side.

CHAPTER II

CANASTA

THERE are many games which have an international flavour, of which a certain number constitute a social asset. Chief among these latter may be considered Golf, Tennis and Contract Bridge. It would be wrong to say that anyone who displays prowess at any of these games can be considered, for this reason alone, socially acceptable, but it would be equally right to suggest that the ability to play them helps enormously in procuring a ready welcome in many homes and in every corner of the world. There has always been a search for games of this description which help to pass a great amount of time under happy circumstances and amongst congenial surroundings. Canasta has arrived and may well be considered to fall within this category.

Early in the 1920’s a game called Mah Jong was introduced from China to this country and to the United States of America with a fanfare of trumpets, and the promise of taking a prominent place among house-party amusements. The fact that it failed to achieve anything but a small niche in any compendium of games can be attributed to two factors only. Firstly, it is played with a rather complicated and expensive set of stones which has to be built up, before each hand commences, into a wall, the tedium of which, after the first rush of enthusiasm, becomes rather apparent and secondly, the fact that the scoring is so complex and on occasions becomes so high as to be uncontrollable, and by the very nature of the game, any limitation of bonuses works to its detriment. The great problem is how to play the game for a small stake without involving the possible winning or loosing of sums out of proportion to what is intended.

Canasta, in many ways a game of the same type, only played with cards instead of stones, has solved this problem. It can be learnt in a very short time, and while proficiency at the game may take some while to achieve, it is within the scope of everyone, requiring nothing more than a good memory and an interesting study of Psychology. Unlike Contract Bridge with its innumerable variations and its intricate collection of squeezes, endplays and bidding systems, unlike Poker where the main interest is in the monetary side, Canasta is an intriguing and attractive game where the minimum knowledge of a pack of cards is sufficient to enable a player to take his place at the card table and hold his own in the company of almost anyone, and while it would be wrong to say that Canasta can be enjoyed without playing for a stake, it is certain that this stake can be placed as low as it is desired without in any way detracting from the enjoyment.

Unlike all other card games, Canasta takes no account of suits or sequences, only cards of the same denomination, i.e. Aces, Kings, Queens, etc., are of importance, and it would be almost true to say that the game could be played with equal success by using a series of counters of different colours.

CHAPTER III

THE ORIGIN OF CANASTA

UNLIKE most other card games, which may be said to be the logical conclusion to a previously played game, Canasta has no such basis. Its history, though somewhat vague, is almost certainly embodied in that of some South American Republic; hence the Spanish word from which it derives its name. The best story I have heard to account for its origin, is that it was invented by the society ladies of Montevideo, in order to lure their men folk away from the incessant games of Poker which were apparently playing such havoc with the household budget.

It was discovered by some of the leading card players of the United States of America, who saw in this the logical successor to the then popular game of Gin Rummy. During 1948-49 a spate of books appeared on the subject, and Canasta had arrived. Mr. Oswald Jacoby, one of America’s leading Bridge players since the days of Sidney Lenz and Ely Culbertson, and Mr. John Crawford—a member of the American International Bridge team which won the world championship in 1950, were soon established as America’s leading experts. They played a series of exhibition matches in partnership, all of which they won in some comfort and emerged with the unofficial title of world champions. In 1949, the game was introduced to Great Britain and the remainder of the European continent to such good purpose that within a very short while, every other card game except Contract Bridge was relegated to a place of secondary importance.

Although Canasta contains some of the features of Poker, Gin Rummy, Mah Jong, Coon Can, and even Contract Bridge, it bears a close resemblance to none of these and is a card game entirely on its own.

Up to the time of writing, the game has no controlling body in the way that Contract Bridge is controlled by international rules. The Regency Club of New York, Crockfords Club of London and Messrs. John Waddington & Company have all produced semi-official books of rules. All these three contain slightly different versions of how the game can be played, and aside from this, there are also other variations which some players have seen fit to try out. This state of affairs must invariably continue unless and until the game can have some official backing and a set of international laws, but it in no way detracts from the merit of the game, and while in this book it is my intention to discuss the several alternative rules, it may well be that new variations will occur of which no mention is made. They can all be tried out and the future of the game will lie in the combination which proves most satisfactory to the majority.

CHAPTER IV

THE PACK

IT would appear to be unnecessary to explain that an ordinary pack contains fifty-two cards divided into four suits, thirteen cards of each suit. Even if a person were unaware of this basic fact, it would be no hindrance to a would-be learner of Canasta: the suits, whose rank at other games is a matter of importance—the cards, which in other games have a trick taking value according to their designation, i.e. Ace, King, Queen, Knave, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, bear little relationship to the game we are discussing. The game is played with two ordinary packs of cards, plus the addition of four Jokers, making one hundred and eight cards in all. These Jokers are termed Wild Cards and have the same function as all the twos in the pack; they can be used at the discretion of the player, to represent any card which their possessor desires. They have, also, other uses which we will discuss at a later stage. It can, therefore, be seen that these Wild Cards are Key Cards and their possession or otherwise will largely affect the outcome of the game. There can be occasions when the possession of too many can be an embarrassment, but certainly the possession of too few is invariably a handicap too large to overcome. As in life it has often been said, It is impossible to live with women, but equally impossible to live without them, so it is even in a game of cards.

The number of ways