Hand and Foot Rules

Basic Overview:

Hand and Foot is a team card game played in four rounds. In each round players start with 22 cards: 11 hand cards and 11 foot cards. Each player must play all their hand cards before playing their foot cards. The first player to play all of their hand and foot cards ends the round.

Game Components

There is a common draw pile and common discard pile for all players.

Each player is dealt 11 hand cards they can see, and 11 foot cards which will appear once the hand cards have been played.

Each team works to create piles (sometimes referred to as books) shared between all players on the team. A pile begins with a meld of 3 or more cards of the same number or a mixture of naturals and wild cards.

clean example dirty example
Clean Meld Dirty Meld

A complete pile has at least 7 cards. A pile of entirely natural cards is called a “clean” pile. A pile with a mixture of wilds and naturals is called a “dirty” pile.

Playing the Game

Player’s turn starts with drawing cards. Player either draws two cards from the draw pile or takes cards from the discard pile. To take from the discard pile you need to meet the following criteria:

  • You have at least 2 of the same card in your hand
  • You can play the 2 cards in your hand and the top card you draw
  • You pick up the top card and the next 6 cards in the discard pile (If there are fewer than a total of 7 cards in the discard pile you just draw as many cards as there are).

After you draw cards, you can put cards into your pile section.

To start a pile, you need 3 cards of the same number, or 2 cards of the same number and a wild (2 or Joker). Drag the card you want to play to either the New Pile section or to an existing pile. 3’s of any color are the exception to piles; a player can’t meld a pile with 3's.

Cards are moved by draging from your playing cards to the piles or to the discard pile.
When a pile is completed the cards will collapse so only the top card is completely visible.
A red top card will indicate a clean pile, a black top card will indicate a dirty pile.

clean closed dirty closed
Clean Pile Dirty Pile


If a player wants to change their card play before discarding, they can press the Return Cards button

Player’s turn ends with a discard.

Rounds

Each round has a different minimum card value required to start the team piles.

  • Round 1 : 50 points
  • Round 2 : 90 points
  • Round 3 : 120 points
  • Round 4 : 150 points

Points are the value of the cards in the piles.

A team can end a round once they have completed at least 1 clean and 1 dirty pile and all teamates have played at least one card in their foot.

At the end of a round all cards still in players hand and foot are counted against their round total.

Card & Pile Properties and Values:
  • 2 : Wild card +20 points
  • Joker : Wild card +50 points
  • Ace : +20 points
  • Red 3 : (Hearts / Diamonds) : -300 points and can not be used in a pile
  • Black 3 : (Spades / Clubs) : -5 points and can not be used in a pile
  • 4 – 7 : +5 points
  • 8 – King : +10 points
  • Clean pile : +500 points
  • Dirty pile : +300 points
  • Team bonus for ending the round : +100

After each round players are automatically given a new set of hand and foot cards.

Game Ending:

The game is finished at the end of round 4. The team with the highest total score wins.

Rule Variations:

There are extra variations located in the Game Settings at the top left of the screen. Marking a variation will allow it to be included in the game.

Multiple Games:

If you are playing multiple games at one time, those will be noted under the Active Games tab on the top right.
Active Games
An asterix (*) determines if it is your turn.