Melds with less than 7 cards are considered open. Melds of seven cards (or more) are considered to be complete, and may be referred to as books bonuses are awarded for these melds. The objective of the game is to create melds consisting of 3-7 (or sometimes more, depending on house rules) cards of the same rank, possibly including wild cards. A game is ended either after a fixed number of rounds, or by a team reaching a specified score. 'Clean' melds, which have no wild cards, are awarded more points than 'dirty' melds, which have one or more. Points are awarded for each card played, and bonuses are awarded for completed (seven-card) melds. Red 3s are generally treated specially: they are played automatically on the board, and the player draws a replacement card. Black 3s are generally not permitted to be melded, and must be discarded. The number of wild cards in a meld are usually limited to two or three, although melds of exclusively wild cards are permitted in many game rules. Melds must be at least three cards in size, and are usually restricted to have no more than seven.

The objective of the game is to create melds of cards of the same rank, possibly with the inclusion of wild cards, which are either jokers or deuces.

The game supports a number of variant playing rules, based on a diversity of published rule sets. It supports from 3 to 7 players playing as individuals, with team play possible for as many as 12. This is an implementation of the Canasta variant called Hand and Foot, in which players receive two sets of cards, played according to variations of standard Canasta rules, in which cards are played into melded sets.

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