Originally Posted by PornMD

I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but based off my own experience with poker and other games, the biggest things to remember in my opinion are not to be predictable and to play the other as much or more than the hand itself. If you ALWAYS play on hand strength and NEVER take a gamble, other people will catch on to that and will play you to a T such that you will win the least amount possible when you have a good hand, and will always be forced to fold bad hands.

One thing you can do is develop like 2 or 3 strategies on how you will play, play initially for a few rounds of deals using 1 of them, then switch it up to another strategy to throw people off. Canasta may not be as skillful as poker, but most people don't realize how much skill is involved and how much you can effectively neutralize luck in how you play your cards, and I used to win about 85% of the games I played based on utilizing different strategies and switching amongst them based on how other people were playing. You simply never want other people to KNOW what's in your hand based on how you play.

Also, pay attention to how people act and react to the community cards and to other people's bets as well as your own. That's more of how you read other people vs. how they are sitting there when it's their own turn to bet, as that's where a lot of people try to bluff others based on their behavior anyways, like taking a long time and a very studious look at their hand when they've got a pair of bullets in their hand and could have raised all-in in half a second.

Lastly, if you want to drive the hand, raise the bet. If you want to be driven (i.e. letting someone think they're winning the hand when you probably are), check and call bets. Still, don't let someone get out of a hand without paying you something if you definitely have them beat...if you go through a round of checking after the flop, you'll probably want to bet on the turn, and DEFINITELY want to bet on the river...usually a somewhat decent sized bet on the turn, and a strong bet on the river (as in a case of 2 weak hands for example, usually the first to make a strong bet at the pot is seen as trying to steal it, and some people might call that bet with that thought in mind).