Canasta Classic Card Game

Game starts off well but after playing about 35-40 games, you suddenly start losing most of the games & all of the matches. Here are 3 reasons why: First, my partner consistently holds melds instead of playing them. I end up dumping “useless” cards that COULD have been played if my partner had laid down the meld. Makes no sense. Secondly, the opponent to my left takes my discard > 50% of the time, yet I rarely get a discard to use from the player to my right. So the computer obviously knows what I have and holds cards to be able to use my discards. For example, I just played a game where the player to my left held FOUR QUEENS until I discarded one - then took it and played multiple other melds to go out on the very next turn. Who holds cards like that? Finally, my initial deals ALWAYS have long runs of different cards whereas the opponents typically have several sets of 2 and 3+ cards. Every game has been this way. No way an actual deal would consistently give me 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,K,K,A - or something similar. That forces you to take many turns before being able to lay down melds - and my partner never plays melds as noted above. So, you end up losing. (In a game just now, my opponent was dealt 5 queens. I’ve never been dealt even 4 of a kind.) It’s clear the game isn’t being played fair by the computer, the worst being that my partner holds 15+ cards and never lays them down…so the other team goes out and we lose. No one plays this way IRL, so I will delete this game. It started off so well, but this happens. Very disappointing for what could have been a fun game.

Although it’s fun to play, there are so many things that need fixing. The play seems to favor the computer opponent. And I have numbers to support this. For example, the number of times either player has 2 or more red threes should be random/ similar. However, in a bank of games I played, my “opponent “ had 2+ red threes 78% of the time and I had 2+ only 11% of the time. Not random. Also, the number of times I had a joker wild card during a time when I needed to play the 120 point meld was likewise significantly lower than my computer opponent. Lastly, there were times when I saw my opponent being allowed to meld using the top card of the discard pile. But when I went to make the same move, I got error messages saying I had to pick a card and that the discard pile was froze until I melded(which I believe to be correct). Why are there errors of play? These things significantly lower the enjoyment factor of the game. There are other examples too.

I’ve never played Canasta before, as a card game or as an app. This makes it easy to learn the basics and start playing. Since I haven’t played before I can’t comment on the technical aspects or rules of the game. I’m enjoying this, having fun learning, winning and losing. I’ve had no problems running the app and the gameplay is smooth. Graphics are pleasing, rules are available anytime. I’ll amend this if anything comes up, gotta get back to the game!