Section 3: Setup & Deal
Choose Partners and Dealer
Choose partners by agreement or by drawing cards, with the two highest cards playing against the two lowest. Partners sit opposite each other. Select the first dealer at random; the deal then passes clockwise after every hand.
Shuffle and Deal
The dealer thoroughly shuffles all 108 cards and deals 11 cards face down to each player, one card at a time clockwise. Players may pick up and arrange their hands after the deal is complete.
Place the undealt cards face down in the center as the stock. Turn the next card face up beside it to begin the discard pile. If that card is a red three or a wild card, turn it sideways and expose additional cards until a natural card other than a red three is on top. All exposed cards remain in the discard pile, which begins frozen.
Deal Corrections
Before play begins, correct a hand with too few cards by dealing the missing cards from the stock. A player with too many cards returns the excess at random to the stock without exposing them. If the error cannot be corrected fairly because players have seen one another’s cards or play has substantially begun, reshuffle and redeal.
Red Threes in the Initial Hands
Before the first turn, each player exposes every red three in their hand and draws one replacement for each. If a replacement is another red three, it is also exposed and replaced. Red threes are kept face up near the partnership’s other cards but do not count toward the partnership’s opening meld requirement.
Opening Meld Requirement
The first time a partnership lays down melds in a hand, the total face value of the cards laid down during that turn must meet the threshold determined by the partnership’s score before the hand began.
| Partnership Score Before the Hand | Required Opening Meld |
|---|---|
| Below 0 | 15 points |
| 0 through 1,495 | 50 points |
| 1,500 through 2,995 | 90 points |
| 3,000 or more | 120 points |
Several new melds may be combined to reach the requirement, but cards added on a later turn cannot repair an insufficient opening. Canasta bonuses, red-three bonuses, and the going-out bonus do not count toward the opening threshold. When opening by taking the discard pile, only cards from the player’s hand and the top discard used in the qualifying meld count toward the threshold; buried cards acquired with the pile do not.