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We are a small friendly group of Canasta players; a game which may be played by groups of two, three or four people.

History of Canasta

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.

Information taken from Wikipedia