Cribbage
Encyclopedia
Cribbage, or crib, is a card game
traditionally for two players, but commonly played with three, four or more, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points. Cribbage has several distinctive features: the cribbage board
used for scorekeeping, the eponymous crib or box (a separate hand counting for the dealer), two distinct scoring stages (the play and the show) and a unique scoring system including points for groups of cards that total fifteen.
, cribbage was created by the English
poet Sir John Suckling
in the early 17th century, as a derivation of the game "noddy
". While noddy has disappeared, crib has survived, virtually unchanged, as one of the most popular games in the English-speaking
world. The objective of the game is to be the first player to score a target number of points, typically 61 or 121. Points are scored for card combinations that add up to fifteen, and for pairs, triples, quadruples, runs
and flushes
.
Cribbage holds a special place among American submariners, serving as an "official" pastime. The wardroom of the oldest submarine in the fleet carries RADM Dick O'Kane
's personal cribbage board onboard, and upon decommissioning it is transferred to the next oldest boat.
for first deal, and the dealer shuffle
s and deals five or six cards to each player, depending on the number of players. For two players, each is dealt six cards; for three or four players, each is dealt five cards. In the case of three players, a single card is dealt face down in the centre of the table to start the crib. Once the cards have been dealt, each player chooses four cards to retain, then discards the other one or two face-down to form the "crib" which will be used later by the dealer. At this point, each player's hand and the crib will contain exactly four cards. The player on the dealer's left cuts the deck and the dealer reveals the top card, called the "starter". If this card is a Jack
, the dealer scores two points for "his heels", also known as "his nibs".
and for pairs. Players choose the order in which to lay their cards in order to maximize their score; experienced players refer to this as either good or poor "pegsmanship". If one player reaches the target (usually 61 or 121), the game ends immediately and that player wins.
and having a Jack of the same suit as the starter card ("one for his nob [or nobs or nibs]"). The dealer scores his hand last and then turns the cards in the crib face up. These cards are then scored by the dealer as an additional hand in conjunction with the starter card.
Scores between 0 and 29 are all possible, with the exception of 19, 25, 26 and 27. Players may refer colloquially to a hand scoring zero points as having a score of nineteen.
fashion, so that if a player loses track during the count one peg still marks the previous score. Some boards have a "game counter", with many additional holes for use with a third peg to count the games won by each side.
There are several designs of crib board:
Because the crib board is a useful scoring device, players sometimes use it to keep score in other games, such as dominoes
.
Card game
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...
traditionally for two players, but commonly played with three, four or more, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points. Cribbage has several distinctive features: the cribbage board
Scoreboard
A scoreboard is a large board for publicly displaying the score in a game or match. Most levels of sport from high school and above use at least one scoreboard for keeping score, measuring time, and displaying statistics. Scoreboards in the past used a mechanical clock and numeral cards to...
used for scorekeeping, the eponymous crib or box (a separate hand counting for the dealer), two distinct scoring stages (the play and the show) and a unique scoring system including points for groups of cards that total fifteen.
History
According to John AubreyJohn Aubrey
John Aubrey FRS, was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the collection of short biographical pieces usually referred to as Brief Lives...
, cribbage was created by the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
poet Sir John Suckling
John Suckling (poet)
Sir John Suckling was an English poet and one prominent figure among those renowned for careless gaiety, wit, and all the accomplishments of a Cavalier poet; and also the inventor of the card game Cribbage...
in the early 17th century, as a derivation of the game "noddy
Noddy (card game)
Noddy , Noddie, Nodde, is a 16th century English card game ancestor of Cribbage. It is the oldest identifiable card game with this gaming structure and a relative to the more-complicated 18th century game Costly Colours.- History :...
". While noddy has disappeared, crib has survived, virtually unchanged, as one of the most popular games in the English-speaking
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
world. The objective of the game is to be the first player to score a target number of points, typically 61 or 121. Points are scored for card combinations that add up to fifteen, and for pairs, triples, quadruples, runs
Run (cards)
A run is a combination of playing cards where cards have consecutive rank values. Some games, such as cribbage, will specify that an Ace counts as one ; others will specify that an Ace counts above a King ; yet others, such as poker, allow an Ace to count high or low, but not both in the same...
and flushes
Flush (cards)
A flush is a hand of playing cards where all cards are of the same suit.- Etymology :The general meaning of the word flush is fullness or abundance, as there are similar meaning words in Dutch, French, Italian and Spanish. The words origin is 'fluxus' in Latin, which means 'flow'.-Examples:...
.
Cribbage holds a special place among American submariners, serving as an "official" pastime. The wardroom of the oldest submarine in the fleet carries RADM Dick O'Kane
Richard O'Kane
Rear Admiral Richard Hetherington “Dick” O'Kane was a United States Navy submarine commander in World War II, who received a Medal of Honor for his service on the...
's personal cribbage board onboard, and upon decommissioning it is transferred to the next oldest boat.
Rules
The players cutCut (cards)
After a deck of cards is shuffled by the dealer, it is often given to a player other than the one who performed the shuffle for a procedure called a cut.- Procedure :...
for first deal, and the dealer shuffle
Shuffle
Shuffling is a procedure used to randomize a deck of playing cards to provide an element of chance in card games. Shuffling is often followed by a cut, to help ensure that the shuffler has not manipulated the outcome.-Shuffling techniques:...
s and deals five or six cards to each player, depending on the number of players. For two players, each is dealt six cards; for three or four players, each is dealt five cards. In the case of three players, a single card is dealt face down in the centre of the table to start the crib. Once the cards have been dealt, each player chooses four cards to retain, then discards the other one or two face-down to form the "crib" which will be used later by the dealer. At this point, each player's hand and the crib will contain exactly four cards. The player on the dealer's left cuts the deck and the dealer reveals the top card, called the "starter". If this card is a Jack
Jack (playing card)
A Jack, also Knave, is a playing card with a picture of a man on it. The usual rank of a jack, within its suit, is as if it were an 11 ....
, the dealer scores two points for "his heels", also known as "his nibs".
The play
Starting with the player on the dealer's left, each player lays one card face up in turn onto a personal discard pile, stating the cumulative value of the cards laid (for example, the first player lays a five and says "five", the next lays a six and says "eleven", and so on), without the total going above 31. Once no more cards can be played, the cumulative position is reset to zero and those players with cards remaining repeat the process until all players' cards have been played. Players score points during this process for making a total of fifteen, for reaching exactly, or as close as possible to a total of thirty-one, for runsRun (cards)
A run is a combination of playing cards where cards have consecutive rank values. Some games, such as cribbage, will specify that an Ace counts as one ; others will specify that an Ace counts above a King ; yet others, such as poker, allow an Ace to count high or low, but not both in the same...
and for pairs. Players choose the order in which to lay their cards in order to maximize their score; experienced players refer to this as either good or poor "pegsmanship". If one player reaches the target (usually 61 or 121), the game ends immediately and that player wins.
The show
Once the play is complete, each player in turn receives points based on the content of his hand in conjunction with the starter card. Points are scored for combinations of cards totalling fifteen, runs, pairs, flushesFlush (cards)
A flush is a hand of playing cards where all cards are of the same suit.- Etymology :The general meaning of the word flush is fullness or abundance, as there are similar meaning words in Dutch, French, Italian and Spanish. The words origin is 'fluxus' in Latin, which means 'flow'.-Examples:...
and having a Jack of the same suit as the starter card ("one for his nob [or nobs or nibs]"). The dealer scores his hand last and then turns the cards in the crib face up. These cards are then scored by the dealer as an additional hand in conjunction with the starter card.
Scores between 0 and 29 are all possible, with the exception of 19, 25, 26 and 27. Players may refer colloquially to a hand scoring zero points as having a score of nineteen.
Muggins
Muggins (also known as cut-throat) is a commonly used but optional rule, that must be announced before game play begins. If the opposing player fails to claim his full score on any turn, the opponent may call out "Muggins" and peg any points overlooked by the other player.Cribbage board
Visually, cribbage is known for its scoring board - a series of holes ("streets") on which the score is tallied with pegs (also known as "spilikins"). Scores can be kept on a piece of paper, but a cribbage board is almost always used, since scoring occurs throughout the game, not just at the conclusion of hands as in most other card games. Points are registered as having been scored by "pegging" along the crib board. Two pegs are used in a leapfrogLeapfrog
Leapfrog is a children's game in which players vault over each other's stooped backs. The first participant rests hands on knees and bends over, which is called giving a back. Games of this sort have been called by this name since at least the late sixteenth century.The next player places hands on...
fashion, so that if a player loses track during the count one peg still marks the previous score. Some boards have a "game counter", with many additional holes for use with a third peg to count the games won by each side.
There are several designs of crib board:
- The classic design is a flat wooden board approximately 250–300 mm (10–12 in) by 70–80 mm (3–4 in) and 10–20 mm (0.4–0.8 in) deep. There are two sets of 60 holes (30 'out' and 30 'back') divided into 5 point sections, see picture above. A pegging-out hole in the middle at each end allows the board to be used in either direction. One player or team scores on one set of 60 holes and the other player or team scores on the second set. Different arrangements are made for three player games.
- A relatively old design is that of an equilateral triangle with two rows of forty holes on each side. These boards did not generally include extra pegging-out holes or holes to count games.
- A newer design has three or four rows of 120 holes with a pegging-out hole at the end and is often brightly coloured. It is best suited to games played to 121, though it can also be used for 61-point games.
- Another common variation is based on features of the highest-scoring cribbage hand. The board takes the form of the number 29 (the highest possible score), with the pegging rows following the contour of the numbers "2" and "9". The design can sometimes include a background image of three fives and a Jack, with the fourth five offset—the "perfect hand" giving that score. The count being 8 times 15 for 16 points, 6 pairs of 2 for 12 points and a matching "nobs" Jack (matching the cut card) for 1 totaling 29.
Because the crib board is a useful scoring device, players sometimes use it to keep score in other games, such as dominoes
Dominoes
Dominoes generally refers to the collective gaming pieces making up a domino set or to the subcategory of tile games played with domino pieces. In the area of mathematical tilings and polyominoes, the word domino often refers to any rectangle formed from joining two congruent squares edge to edge...
.
See also
- Card gameCard gameA card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...
- Cribbage statistics
- Cribbage (strategy)Cribbage (strategy)Cribbage, or crib, is a card game where points are scored for holding certain combinations of cards and for playing the cards in a certain order.- Throwing your hand :...
- Cribbage SolitaireCribbage SolitaireCribbage Solitaire is a solitaire card game using a deck of 52 playing cards. It is based on the game of five-card cribbage, also known as the "old game," and is one of many solitaire card games based on those played by at least two players, best known of which is Poker Solitaire.First, twelve...
and Cribbage Square SolitaireCribbage Square SolitaireCribbage Square Solitaire is a solitaire card game based on cribbage which can be played using a deck of playing cards. This game works the same way as Poker Squares, but with cribbage scoring...
, two solitaireSolitaireSolitaire is any tabletop game which one can play by oneself or with other people. The solitaire card game Klondike is often known as simply Solitaire....
card games based on Cribbage - CrossCribbCrossCribbCrossCribb is a card game created in 1996 by Maynard's, a store located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It uses traditional cribbage scoring, a deck of cards, a custom game board, and score sheets that correspond with the game board....
, a board game in which players try to form intersecting cribbage hands on a five-by-five grid - Kings CribbageKings CribbageKings Cribbage is a board game released by Cococo Games that counts like cribbage, but plays like a crossword puzzle. It uses a raised-grid gameboard and features playing card tiles, 4 tile holders and a bag.-Rules:...
, a game with cribbage hands being constructed crossword-style - Pub gamesPub gamesPub games are games which are or were played in pubs, bars, inns, and taverns, particularly traditional games played in English pubs. Most are indoor games, though some are played outdoors Pub games are games which are or were played in pubs, bars, inns, and taverns, particularly traditional games...