Hand and Foot Card Game Rules

What you need

• Decks: one more deck than there are players, jokers left in. For four players that is 5 decks with jokers, 270 cards. Two players use 3 decks. Any other table size: how many decks for Hand and Foot.
• Players: best with four, as two teams of two. Partners sit across from each other. Two, three or six can play too.
• A score sheet and a pencil. Our printable Hand and Foot score sheet has all four rounds laid out.
• Time: a full game of four rounds takes an evening, often two hours or so.

The goal

Score the most points over four rounds. Most points come from books: piles of seven cards of the same rank. One player going out ends the round, and then both sides count their score.

Dealing the hand and the foot

1. Shuffle all the decks together. It helps to split them into a few piles and let several people shuffle.
2. Each player takes two piles of 13 cards (11 in many families). The first pile you pick up is your hand. The second stays face down in front of you: that is your foot. Don't look at it yet.
3. Put the rest of the cards face down in the middle as the stock, and turn the top card face up to start the discard pile. If that card is a wild card or a red three, bury it in the stock and turn up another.
4. The player to the dealer's left goes first, and play goes clockwise. The deal moves to the left each round.

A family shortcut: many tables let each player grab a stack and count it off. In some, if you grab exactly the right number of cards for your hand and foot you get a 100-point bonus.

Card values

Cards you meld count for you. Cards left in your hand or foot when the round ends count against you, so a stray joker costs 50.

Wild cards and how many you may use

Twos and jokers are wild. A wild card can stand in for any rank in a meld. But a meld always needs real (natural) cards too, and how many wild cards you may add is one of the things families argue about most. The two common rules:

The numbers are the most wild cards allowed. Classic follows pagat.com: natural cards must outnumber wild cards two to one. Simple is a common family rule: at least two natural cards and no more than three wild cards. Bicycle's rules ask for at least four natural cards in a finished book.

A meld made only of wild cards is a wild book (seven twos and jokers). Pagat's rules play it; many families don't.

Red threes and black threes

• Red threes (hearts and diamonds) are bonus cards. As soon as you get one, lay it face up in front of you and draw a replacement card from the stock. Each is worth 100 points. A red three still hidden in your hand or foot when the round ends counts minus 100.
• Black threes (spades and clubs) can't be melded. They are handy to discard: nobody can pick up the pile while a three is on top. A black three left in your hand at the end counts minus 5.

Your turn: draw 2, discard 1

1. Draw two cards from the stock, or pick up the discard pile instead (see Picking up the pile).
2. Meld if you want to: lay down new melds or add cards to your side's melds.
3. Discard one card face up on the discard pile. That ends your turn.

Partners share their melds. You can add cards to your partner's melds, and they can add to yours.

Melds and books

A meld is three to seven cards of the same rank, laid face up on the table. Sequences (5-6-7) don't count. When a meld reaches seven cards it becomes a book. Square it up into a pile: it is closed, and nothing more goes on it. You can start another meld of the same rank.

The first meld: 50, 90, 120, 150

Each round, your side's first meld has to be worth a minimum number of points. You may put down several melds at once to reach it. Only the card values count: book bonuses and red threes don't.

Example: in round 2 you need 90. Three kings, three eights and a joker (K K K, 8 8 8 + joker) make 110 points, so you can go down. Once one partner has met the minimum, the other partner can meld anything for the rest of the round.

Picking up the discard pile

Instead of drawing two cards from the stock, you may take the discard pile, but only if:

• you hold a natural pair (two real cards, no wilds) of the same rank as the top card,
• the top card is not a three, and
• you meld those three cards right away.

Then take the top seven cards of the pile (or all of it, if it has fewer) into your hand. Some families take the whole pile. If your side hasn't met the minimum yet, only the top card counts toward it, not the cards under it.

Playing into your foot

When you have played every card in your hand, pick up your foot and keep going.

• If you used up your hand by melding, pick up the foot and carry on with the same turn.
• If your last card was a discard, pick up the foot and wait for your next turn.

Get into your foot as early as you can: a foot you never picked up counts against you at the end of the round, red threes and all.

Going out

A player goes out by getting rid of all their cards. To go out:

1. Your side must have the books your rules ask for. Classic (pagat): 2 clean, 2 dirty and 1 wild book. Simple: 1 clean and 1 dirty book.
2. You must be playing from your foot, and in Classic your partner must have picked up their foot too.
3. In partnership play, ask your partner: “May I go out?” Their answer is final. If they say no, you can't go out on this turn.
4. Meld all your cards, or meld all but one and discard it.

Going out earns 100 points and ends the round for everyone. If the stock runs out first, the round ends without a going-out bonus.

Scoring, with an example

At the end of each round, each side adds:

• its books: clean 500, dirty 300, wild 1,500 (Classic),
• 100 for each red three,
• 100 for going out,
• the points of every card it melded, books included,
• then subtracts the points of the cards left in its players' hands and feet.

Example (Classic rules). Your team went out with 2 clean books, 2 dirty books and a wild book, 2 red threes, and 920 points of melded cards. The other team has 1 clean and 2 dirty books, 1 red three, 610 melded, and 135 points still in their hands and feet.

Keep a running total. After round 4 the side with the most points wins. Use the online score keeper and it does this math for you.

Hand and Foot for 2 players

Two people can play heads-up, each for themselves. Use 3 decks with jokers (162 cards). Deal each player a hand and a foot, 11 or 13 cards each. Everything else is the same, except there is no partner to ask, so you go out whenever you have the books you need and are playing from your foot. Some couples ask for fewer books in the 2-player game, such as one clean and one dirty, so rounds don't drag on.

House rules: how families differ

There is no official Hand and Foot rulebook, so every family's version is a little different, and none is wrong. Before the first deal, agree on these:

Set your family's rules on this site. In our Hand and Foot game, open Settings and pick Classic, Simple or Custom. Custom lets you change the hand size, books needed, wild card rule, red three value, pile size and the minimum for each round. The score keeper has the same three choices, and the printable sheet has a box to write your family's rules down.

Build and print your own rule card: Hand and Foot rule variations.