Samba is played with 162 cards, three decks of 52 cards and 6 jokers. In the event of 6 players, all partners are always separated by two other players. When there are four players you and your partners are placed opposite at the table. Samba is a three pack card game that can be played with 2, 3, 4, 5 or even 6 players! When you're playing with two, three or five players, everyone plays his or her own game when you're playing with 4 or 6 players, you play with a partner.

These canasta cards can be ordered from. They come as a double pack (108 cards) so you would need two of these for a three-deck samba game. Piatnik or Bicycle Canasta cards (marked with point values) can also be used for Samba. It is recommended that you understand the basics of Canasta before you play this variation. In some places it is known as Samba-Canasta one Dutch book also calls it Straat-Canasta (Sequence-Canasta). This page is based on a contribution from Harrie Wiering, who describes the Dutch version of this game.