by Shelly Kneupper Tucker

Created on: February 16, 2007   Last Updated: August 26, 2009

As a child, I remember that my parents often got together with friends for an evening of card games. Usually the game was poker, spades, or canasta. Everyone brought a dish of food for a "potluck" supper, after which the kids went off to watch television and play kid games and the grownups gathered at the card tables. It was an inexpensive evening of entertainment and camaraderie, although I do remember that sometimes the grownup's card games got rather cutthroat.

Lately, in the interest of saving money, we have been reviving the tradition of Game Night with our friends. We were introduced to a card game that everyone seems to enjoy. I've searched for it on-line, but wasn't able to find it until I joined Helium. Mystery Lady calls it "hand and foot," and plays in teams.

We call it "Footsie" and everyone is on their own. Footsie is a variant on Canasta, but much more relaxed, because half of winning the game is just dumb luck. We use so many decks of cards (I have 20 decks purchased at the Dollar Store shuffled together) that there is no way to guess what is in another person's hand. That's not to say that you don't have to use strategy to win, but it's very different from the one used in Canasta.

To write the rules down for Footsie, I looked up "Canasta" in The Games Treasury by Merilyn Simonds Mohr (Chapters Publishing Limited; 1993. ISBN # 1-881527-23-9). I was interested to see that Canasta (a type of Gin Rummy) originated in Uruguay in about 1940 then spread to Argentina and eventually the United States. Mohr stated "Canasta is the Spanish word for basket and refers to the main thrust of the game: to collect melds of three or more cards of the same value." She had a tip I thought amusing: "caution-this game can be hazardous to relationships.
More than one couple has had to forswear the game to preserve a marriage."

So far, Footsie doesn't seem to have gotten nearly so vicious in our crowd, but it is like Canasta in that it is easy to learn but difficult to master. My husband and I often play "open-handed" Footsie in the evenings so we can talk about card strategies. It's also easier to teach the game by playing an open-hand game in the beginning. I learned that way, but my husband didn't, and I caught on a lot quicker.

Here are the rules. Try it with friends and see what you think.

FOOTSIE

The object of the game is to lay down "melds" of three or more of a kind, striving for canastas (seven of a kind). Jokers & 2's are wild. Each hand of the game, every

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