Like cards? Say ‘hi’ to Hand and Foot at the Sumner Senior Center

Seniors with an itch for card games can now go to a regularly scheduled game at the Sumner Senior Center.

A group of seniors from the Puyallup Eagles RV Club have moved their twice-a-month game to the Sumner Senior Center after a lengthy tenure at the Puyallup Senior Center. They play the first and third Wednesdays of each month.

The game is “hand and foot,” a close relative of canasta. It requires five decks, two jokers per deck, 270 cards in all.

Rules vary, but the game is typically played in partnerships, with the object being to eliminate cards by melding alike cards between two stacks - one stack being the hand, the other being the foot. These “melds” can be “clean” – made up entirely of alike cards – or “dirty” – using wild cards. Different cards have different point values, so a skilled player may frequently break even, but the right cards are necessary to win. It’s easy to encounter a streak – either winning or losing.

“There are so many rules its hard to know where to begin explaining,” organizer Dottie Lee said. “There are many variations of it, and we play it our way. You just have to get into it to understand.”

Games last a long time, about two hours. On a given Wednesday, the card players will meet from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with a short break for lunch in the middle. Players typically bring their own lunch.

The game is open to everybody, the only regulars coming from the RV Club. Fifteen to 20 people have been known to come to the games, taking up three to four tables.

Participants play for small amounts of money, a dollar per person per game. The biggest winning person or team takes the pot.

Anyone who likes a good card game will enjoy Hand and Foot, Lee said.

“Myself, I just like to play cards,” she said. “It’s quite challenging and gets the mind going. I like Hand and Foot the same way boys like to play poker or pinochle: you just like to play your game.”

The next game is today, Wednesday. To get involved in a Hand and Foot game, stop by the front desk of the Sumner Senior Center and ask where it is being played.