Fun With Games of Rummy by William Root, 1950

Includes Canasta, Bolivia, Samba and Gin

Did you know that this book was endorsed by the Association of American Playing Card Manufacturers?

Canasta is a card game of the rummy family of games believed to be a variant of 500 Rum. Although many variations exist for two, three, five or six players, it is most commonly played by four in two partnerships with two standard decks of cards. Players attempt to make melds of seven cards of the same rank and "go out" by playing all cards in their hands. It is "the most recent card game to have achieved worldwide status as a classic".

Many people believe the game was invented at The Concord or Grossingers, but actually the game of Canasta was devised by attorney Segundo Sanchez Santos and his Bridge partner, architect Alberto Serrato in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1939, in an attempt to design a time-efficient game that was as engaging as Bridge.They tried different formulas before inviting Arturo Gomez Hartley and Ricardo Sanguinetti to test their game.

After a positive reception of Canasta at their local bridge club, the Jockey Club, in the 1940s the game quickly spread north throughout South America in myriad variations to Chile, Peru, Brazil and Argentina, where its rules were further refined. It was introduced to the United States in 1949 by Josefina Artayeta de Viel (New York), 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. In 1949/51 the New York Regency Club wrote the Official Canasta Laws, which were published together with game experts from South America by the National Canasta Laws Commissions of the US and Argentina.

Canasta became rapidly popular in the United States in the 1950s with many card sets, card trays and books being produced. Interest in the game began to wane there during the 1960s, but the game still enjoys some popularity today, with Canasta leagues and clubs still existing in several parts of the United States.

Santos and Serrato never patented the game rules, and thus never received royalties from the later Canasta boom.