April 17, 2024

April's Game of the Month

Dive into the strategic, trash-talking world of Hand and Foot card game where melds and scoring are key to victory!

Hand and Foot

This has been a favorite card game in our Friday night card group for many years. It was taught to us by our friend Ashton who has played with her family since she was a kid. Her grandma was a stickler for the "rules" (which of course, I love!) and so are we. Between the trash talk, hassling over table talk, and calling competitors on playing "correctly", you'd think a brawl would start at any moment. It's all in good fun and we can't get enough of this card game.

We do play by some "house rules" since we've had to make the game more difficult to extend our playing time so I am going to note a few variations. We have played with others who are familiar with the game and discovered there are differences. We like the more challenging house rules for this Canasta-like game.

Object of the game: Be the first 2 person team to get rid of all of your cards, ‘hand’ first, and then ‘foot’
→ Can be played as single player

What do you need: a pack of cards including jokers for the number of players. So, 4 packs for 4 players and 6 packs for 6 players

→ If playing single player, you needs a pack of cards including jokers for the number of players PLUS 1 pack. So, 4 packs for 3 players

Start the game: teams deal, one person hand other person foot, each player clockwise 13 cards (11 for house rules)

• You may only look at the cards in your ‘hand’

• flip over the top card of undealt cards to be first in discard pile (cannot be a Wild or unplayable card)

• player to the left of ‘hand’ dealer starts

Gameplay: each team is trying to make ‘melds’ ¹ , sets of same rank cards 4-A, from the cards they have been dealt

• on your turn, you can either pick up the top card on discard and the next 6 cards below it if you can play the top card immediately OR pick up 2 cards

• in order to start making ‘melds’ you must get ‘in’ ² by meeting the minimum for the round

• once you are ‘in’, your team partner can start adding cards to the ‘melds’ on their turn

• once you have played the available options from your cards, you discard 1 card to end turn

• gameplay moves to the next person clockwise whenever a card is discarded

• you can start to play the cards in your ‘foot’ by either

  • discarding you last card from ‘hand’ and playing from your ‘foot’ on next turn (walking into your foot) or
  • playing the last card in your ‘hand’, picking up your ‘foot’, and continuing to play (running into your foot)
  • a player must always announce when they are picking up their ‘foot’

Ending the round: in order to end the round the team has to meet the criteria to 'Go out'

• completed at least 2 'Clean' and 2 'Dirty' melds

• the person wishing to 'go out' has to ask their team partner for permission to play the last card in their foot to end round

• the partner not ending game has to have played at least one turn with the cards from their 'foot'

How to Score Round: when a player goes out, the cards remaining in player’s hand/foot are counted negatively towards their score based on their value ³

• count the total of your unplayed cards (you will subtract them from round total)

• count your melds

  • 500pts for ‘Clean’
  • 300pts for ‘Dirty’
  • 1500pts for an ALL Wild meld

• count the total value of all your played cards

The person or team with the highest score after four rounds wins!! Good luck and we hope you enjoy Hand and Foot as much as we do.