Though it does have a little Latin connection since the game is a variant of canasta. Developed by John Crawford in the early 1950s, samba differs from canasta in that players can make sequences as well as sets. A sequence of seven cards in the same suit, with no wild cards or black threes, is called a “samba,” according to rummy-games.com. And since samba is similar to canasta, learning to play the latter will allow a player to appreciate the differences between the two games. Some differences include the number cards (samba uses three 52-card decks and six jokers for a total of 162 versus two decks in canasta) and the amount of points to win a game (10,000 for samba versus 5,000 for canasta).

Source: Daily Sun January 23, 2018 13:07 UTC