A younger set of LI women is getting into canasta

For a group of Smithtown women, the cellphones start buzzing with texts every Sunday night.

“Can’t wait for tomorrow!”

“Can’t believe I’m excited for Monday!”

Melinda Downs once thought canasta, the classic card game typically played by groups of four, was too difficult to learn. Now a group of women gather at her Smithtown home every Monday night to play.

After some friends from her book club decided to take canasta lessons together last year, the women kept meeting to play.

Now, Monday nights are sacred, they said, and other friends want in.

“It’s really super fun,” said Downs, 53, a company sales director. “We may be opening up a second table.”

Mah-jongg may currently be all the rage, but canasta, which means basket in Spanish, has its own fiercely loyal following. The complicated card game, once viewed as the purview of silver-haired women, is growing in popularity with women in their 50s and younger. Both are strategy games centered on grouping similar pieces, but mah-jongg is played with tiles while canasta is played with two decks of playing cards.

One Long Island woman is on a mission to introduce the game to a new generation of players. Rachelle Schuster, 56, of Melville, who calls herself the “Canasta Consultant,” has amassed more than 11,000 followers on her Instagram account, @Canasta_Consultant. Her videos were viewed by more than a half-million people in a recent month, and her laminated $10 canasta rules “cheat sheets” have been mailed to more than 1,000 players in the United States and Canada. She’s also begun hosting canasta nights at area venues — the most recent at The Granola Bar in Woodbury in May. Another event, dubbed “Canasta, Cocktails & Couture” is scheduled for July 13 at Mixology Westhampton Beach.

THE RULES

Canasta is played with two decks of regular playing cards and, like mah-jongg, has its own lingo — picking the pack, clean Aces, the talon (pronounced tah-LONE). And, as with mah-jongg, canasta players typically meet at the same time every week to battle it out.

The four players split into two teams. The goal is to be the first team to reach 8,500 points, which are earned primarily by forming canastas — sets of seven matching number cards, regardless of their suit. A game takes multiple rounds and can last several hours.

Picking the pack happens when a player, according to the rules, can pick up all the discarded cards and use them to help build their canastas. Players earn bonus points for collecting seven Aces or seven 7s without using any jokers — called a clean canasta. And the talon is a number of cards a team gets to pick up after they meld for the first time each round — partners often forget to take their talon, causing both exasperation and laughter.

The hardest part? “Losing,” joked Judy Ruland, 67, a purchasing agent from Smithtown.

Some say the most challenging aspect is the many rules, others say it’s counting the score at the end of a round. Rekha Morris, 60, of Bethpage, who works for the state government, jokes that she can add the numbers in her head in her native Hindi while her fellow players need assistance. “I’m a numbers person; math is my favorite thing in the world. The other ladies always need calculators,” she ribbed them during their Monday night game.

THE CANASTA CONSULTANT

Schuster said she felt like a star when she was flown to Michigan earlier this year to host “A Night With the Canasta Consultant” before 160 people at a synagogue.

Schuster posts daily — she joked that the only other thing she’s done every day of her adult life is drink coffee. She addresses questions about intricate canasta rules and advanced strategy in conversational videos featuring sample game hands. She also features photos of followers in “Winning Smile Wednesdays” and matches people up with others looking to form games on “Matchmaker Mondays.”

“I have people day in, day out, 24/7, they are messaging me, they are emailing me, they are texting me, and I do my best to answer every single person,” she said.

Schuster has also begun hosting sold-out social canasta nights at Long Island venues. “It’s not a time to learn the game, it’s a time to come out and have a fun night out,” she said.

She teaches lessons in person and online for a fee and is trying to launch a canasta teacher network across the United States. When she’s not working to monetize her passion for canasta, she’s a substitute elementary school teacher.

Schuster started her Instagram platform in September 2024 with 29 followers, all friends and family she asked to get her started. At first, she just posted funny canasta-themed memes. But the eldest of her three children, who is in her 20s and works in marketing, told her that if she didn’t start posting videos, the Instagram algorithm would not promote her, and nobody would see her posts.

“So, I made a video. It was called ‘What’s Your Why?’ ” she said, and she asked people to comment on why they play canasta. “I was sitting on my couch, I had my 100-pound dog on my lap, and I basically introduced myself. I said: ‘This is my why. I always prioritized everybody else, and I felt that I needed a little something for me.’ And people started commenting, ‘I lost my husband, and I needed companionship.’ ‘I’m an empty nester, and I’m looking to fill some time.’ ‘I want to make sure I’m improving my memory.’ I had hundreds of comments.”

Allison Schwabish, 61, a retired educator from Syosset, took group lessons with her last year. “It was truly the highlight of our week,” Schwabish said. “She broke down the game into very clear, manageable steps. Every now and then we’ll text her a question while we’re in the middle of the game.” She was excited to be featured by Schuster in a “Winning Smile Wednesday” Instagram post.

Laurie McManus, 54, a retired police officer, drove from East Quogue to Woodbury to attend the gathering at The Granola Bar, where she met Schuster. “I felt like I knew her because I watch her all the time on social media,” McManus said. She said the evening felt like a high-end cocktail party combined with game night. “I played with three strangers,” McManus said, “and we were best friends by the end of the night.”

A lawyer and an architect invented canasta in 1939 in Uruguay, and it spread to Argentina and then the United States. The game is said to have been named for the wicker basket the men originally used to hold the game’s discarded playing cards. Though the game was invented by men, like mah-jongg, it is primarily played by women here.

WHAT YOU NEED

It’s inexpensive to get started — all that’s needed are two decks of playing cards, a card tray that spins, paper and pen to keep score, and a card table to play on. Newer variations of the game — including samba canasta, which is played with six decks of cards — have evolved.

Nicole Giacoponello, 49, of Huntington, is a stay-at-home mom and has three children, ages 19, 16 and 13. She plays canasta at noon on Tuesdays and called learning the game “life-changing.”

“It was the best decision. We laugh so much,” Giacoponello said. She and her canasta buddies now do more than just play cards; they went to a dance party together at Mulcahy’s in Wantagh, for instance.

Giacoponello keeps her canasta bag in her car, and she’s ready to pull it out and play with strangers, which she did when her father was in Huntington Hospital and she was waiting for him to recover from a procedure.

Melissa Sussman, 42, of Melville, works in real estate, and has two children, ages 11 and 7. She plays both mah-jongg and canasta and said she prefers canasta.

“It’s a faster-paced game. It’s a little more exciting to me,” she said. “It’s a reason to get together at night, have a good laugh, eat good snacks and play.”

Dix Hills empty nesters Tracy Kleinberg, 51, Beth Glaser, 54, Elyse Guanti, 58 and Selena Fass, 55, play Wednesday nights in Fass’ basement entertainment room, near the Pac-Man machine, air hockey table and big-screen TV. They met when their daughters were on a dance team, but, they said, they became friends through canasta. “Now we see each other all the time,” instead of occasional dinners out, said Kleinberg, a stay-at-home mom.

Canasta, they said, challenges the brain and is a fun social activity. “You’re always thinking and strategizing for your next move,” said Fass, an office manager at a law firm. It inspires camaraderie, they said, and is an escape from their routines.

“We try to stay off our phones when we play,” Glaser said. “It’s like a break from our lives.”