Hand, Knee and Foot

One of our favorite pastimes is playing cards and our current obsession is Hand, Knee and Foot. This is a variation on canasta which requires six decks and nimble hands capable of holding 20 cards or more. Like standard canasta, the hand initially consists of 15 cards and points are scored for canastas (7 of a kind), red threes and melded sets of 3 or more. Also, points are deducted for cards held at the end of the game. The discard pile may be picked up, with certain restrictions. All of this applies to Hand, Knee and Foot as well, but with additional hands (the Knee – a hand of 13 – and a Foot – a hand of 11). The Knee is played when the first canasta is reached and the Foot is played when all cards from the Hand and the Knee have been played. There are 5 required canastas, each with different values:

• 7’s – 5,000 points
• 5’s – 3,000 points
• wild cards (2’s and jokers) – 2,500 points
• red (a pure canasta of any value other than 5 or 7) – 500 points
• black (a canasta of any value other than 5 or 7, with 1 or 2 wild cards) – 300 points

All 5 canastas are required to finish the hand.  The values of the canastas (required and bonus) are added at the end of the hand, along with 100 points for each accumulated red 3 and the point count of all played cards (5 points for 4 to 7, 10 points for 8 to K, 20 for ace and 2’s and 50 for jokers).  As you might guess, the total point count for a hand is quite high – usually over 10,000 points.  A game (consisting of 4 hands) usually has a winning point count of over 60,000.  It is not unusual to have a difference of over 10,000 points.

Jett has been keeping a cumulative running score since January 1.  She is currently ahead by over 80,000 points, due primarily to her uncanny ability to pick up 7’s.  She has won 22 of the 32 hands we have played so far.  I have accumulated the required set of 7 7’s in less than half of those games.

As picking up 7’s should be a matter of pure luck, I am beginning to doubt the Laws of Probability.

Despite my frustrations, it is still a fun game to play.  And a cheap way to keep Jett amused.