Cribbage is my absolute favorite card game for two players -it's fast, it's fun, it's accesssible, and it travels well. It's easy to see why it has been played continuously for 400 years! All you need to play is a standard deck of cards (with jokers removed), and a cribbage board. If you don't have a cribbage board, paper and pencil will do.
Cribbage was invented in the early 1600s by Sir John Suckling, an English nobleman who was best known in his own time for his poetry. It derives from an earlier English card game called noddy, which probably evolved sometime in the 1500s. Noddy has a very similar structure and gameplay to cribbage, but Suckling's key innovations were the creation of the crib and play to 31 rather than a lower number. Cribbage spread around the world with the British empire, including to the colonies of North America. In England, cribbage is the only game which is legal to play for money in a pub without a gambling license. Cribbage remains particularly popular in the upper Midwest, the Great Plains, and parts of Canada and New England. Desipte the enormous time span, little has changed about the rules or gameplay since the 1600s, making cribbage fascinating from a historical perspective.
The cribbage board may look complicated, but its only job is to keep score. The most common cribbage board design is shown below. Each player controls two pegs and one "track" along the board, all of the same color (the extra track is for a three-player game). The goal is simply to be the first player to move from "start" all the way to "finish," 121 points in total. Scoring is frequent in cribbage, so players generally elect to move their two pegs in a "leapfrog" fashion, with the back peg hopping over the front peg, as to make it harder to lose your place. Since all a cribbage board really needs is two tracks of 121 holes, it is common for people to make their own cribbage boards, in inventive designs or out of unconventional materials.
At the beginning of each game, each player cuts some cards off the deck and shows the bottom card. Whichever player shows the lowest card becomes the first dealer. Each hand can be divided into three parts: the discard, the play, and the show.
The dealer shuffles the deck and deals a six-card hand to both players. Players then look at their hands and discard two of their cards facedown into a pile on the table, known as the "crib." During "the show," the crib will become an extra hand scored for the dealer. Therefore, it is advantageous for the non-dealer to discard cards that are not of particular value (see the scoring rules under "the show"). Once both players have discarded, the non-dealer cuts the deck. The dealer then flips the top card and sets it on top of the deck. If the dealer has flipped a jack, they immediately score two points. Otherwise, nothing happens with this card until "the show."
Now that each player has a hand of four cards, they are ready to begin the play, also known as "pegging." The goal of pegging is to score points from playing combinations of cards on the table, while keeping a running total of the number played. The non-dealer begins, playing one card face-up on the table and announcing its value. Aces have a value of 1, and face cards (J,Q,K) have a value of ten. The next player then plays a card, and announces the total value of the cards on the table (if a five and a seven have been played, they would say "twelve"). The total can never exceed thirty-one. If someone cannot play without going over thirty-one, they say "go." The other player then plays, if they can, until they too cannot paly. Whether or not they played, this player immediately takes one point, and the tally resets. The player that said "go" then begins the next pile. Whenever a player plays a card that finishes a scoring combination (see below) in the pile, they take the corresponding amount of points.
| Name | Description | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Fifteen | Playing a card that gets the tally to exactly fifteen | 2 points |
| Pair | Two cards of the same rank | 2 points |
| Three of a kind | Three cards of the same rank | 6 points |
| Four of a kind | Four cards of the same rank | 12 points |
| Straight | Three or more cards of consecutive rank (i.e. 9,10,J) | 1 point per card |
| Thirty-one | Playing a card that gets the tally to exactly thirty-one. The "go" point is not taken. | 2 points |
The cards in a straight can be played in any order, so long as the cards could be arranged into a straight. For example, the if the play was a 5, then a 7, then a 6, the player that played the six can claim a straight. If the next player then played an eight, they could then claim a four-point straight. Straights must all be in the same tally -"go" resets a straight, as well as a 2,3, or 4 of a kind.
The last player to play a card takes a point. Once all cards have been played, each player picks their hand back up and they are ready to begin "the show."
The non-dealer lays their hand on the table and counts all the scoring combinations present (see below). A single card can be part of multiple combinations, even multiple combinations of the same type as long as at least one card in the combination is different. The cut card is treated as part of each player's hand while counting points. The dealer then counts the points in their hand, then the points in the crib.
| Name | Description | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Fifteen | Any combination of cards with a total value equal to fifteen | 2 points |
| Pair | Two cards of the same rank | 2 points |
| Straight | Three or more cards of consecutive rank (i.e. 9,10,J) | 1 point per card |
| Flush | All cards in a player's hand are the same suit. To take a flush in the crib, the cut card must be the same suit as well. | 4 points. If the cut card is also that suit, it is 5 points. |
| Nobs | The suit of the cut card matches the suit of a jack in the player's hand | 1 point |
The round is now over, and the non-dealer takes all the cards, shuffles, and becomes the dealer for the next round.
An optional rule that many experienced players use is called "muggins." Whenever a player fails to take the points for any combination which they could take points (either during the play or in their hand/crib, the other player can announce "muggins," and take the points for themself, as long as the player had been given a reasonable amount of time to take the points originally.
A game of cribbage ends as soon as any player gets to 121 points or higher. If the loser had not passed 90 points, they are said to be "skunked."
Various people have different systems for betting money on cribbage games. The system I have always used is 50 cents for a win or $1.00 for a skunk, plus one cent per point by which the opponent lost. However, this has always been just a fun way to keep track of games -I've never had to settle up
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