A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANASTACanasta (Spanish for "basket"; pronounced /kəˈnæstə/ in English) is a card game of the rummy family of games believed to be a variant of 500 Rum. Although many variations exist for 2, 3, 5 or 6 players, it is most commonly played by four in two partnerships with two standard decks of cards. Players attempt to make melds of 7 cards of the same rank and "go out" by playing all cards in their hand. It is the only partnership member of the family of Rummy games to achieve the status of a classic.
The game of Canasta was devised by attorney Segundo Santos and architect Alberto Serrato in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1939.[1] In the 1940s the game quickly spread in a myriad of variations to Chile, Peru, Brazil and Argentina, where its rules were further refined before being introduced to the United States in 1948, where it was then referred to as the Argentine Rummy game by Ottilie H. Reilly in 1949 and Michael Scully of Coronet Magazine in 1953. The game quickly became a card-craze boom in the 1950s.
I embraced the game as a child under the tuterledge of my paternal grandmother. Along with her co-conspiritors: She Zola Bible (right), Pluma Teeter (back left) and Ethel Twigg (front left) taught me to play Canasta. I know that this is a painting by Grant Wood of 3 women who were members of the Daughters of the American Revolution from Cincinnati, Ohio--BUT, it has always borne an uncanny resemblance to the woman who taught me the sport of canasta on the wide porch of my grandmother's home in the little hamlet of Flintstone, Maryland in the early 70's.
4 comments:
My paternal grandmother also taught ME canasta back in the beginning of the 1960's. We used to play two-handed canasta in her dining room. I don't think I could play it now. But, then again, I thought I couldn't play cribbage and I have certainly done OK with that.
Gotta love those grandmothers!
I remember playing interminable games of canasta with my best friend in an overheated stuffy tent pitched in our backyard throughought long Minnesota summers in the 40's. He never caught onto the game too well so I always won -- but for some reason we kept on playing.
"Dennis" friends continue to play, because that is the nature of friendship. Even when it doesn't make sense, the power of friendship defies even the logic of canasta!
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