Learning to play Cribbage

I learned to pay cribbage when I was very young, aged around six or seven. The scoring was hard at first, but as a result, over 70 years later I can glance at most cribbage hands now and know the points count without too much calculation. I learned from an enthusiastic games-playing, pipe-smoking grandfather who was probably younger then than I am now. But the memories are still strong and powerful. It started my life-long love of card games and subsequently of collecting anything associated with them.

It was some years before I realised that new packs of cards are dealt with ease as one card slides easily over another. The pack I learned with had seen better days and was thick and grimy with age and from years of being handled with nicotine-stained fingers. Dealing involved a somewhat slow process of peeling each card from the pack with a higher degree of effort than should have been necessary and the occasional licked finger.

It was also many years before I realised that cribbage was unlike any other card game. None of the conventions of a trick-winning game like whist or bridge apply, and it can be confusing when you start to learn. As this was the first game I learned, I had none of that baggage to discard.

My grandfather could instantly calculate the points count from each hand as it was displayed but patiently watched as I worked my way through the calculation sequence: 15s first, pairs or triples next and then sequences. Then a long unprompted wait while I remembered “One for his knob” as my jack matched the suit of the up-turned card.

It was a long time before I even came close to winning a game but, as you can imagine, that was a hugely important motivation to keep trying.

To play the game you only need one pack of 52 cards and a cribbage board. In practice even the board is not absolutely essential as you can score on a piece of paper but without it the game loses a lot of its drama when, in the closing stages, the pegs approach the finishing line. This is my grandfathers board which, like the cards, had seen better days even in the early 1950s.

Each game starts with cutting the pack. One person would tap the pack. This was presumably done out of habit to ensure that the cards were compressed and therefore a tap increased the chances of a clean cut. Frankly, the pack we were using needed no extra encouragement for the cards to stick together, but old habits die hard!

Each player would cut the pack, exposing the card at the base of the cut. For some unspecified reason in cribbage the lowest, not the highest, card wins and that person becomes the first “dealer”. Aces are aways low. The advantage of winning the cut is that the dealer has the first “box” and therefore may be able to get off to a good start.

Each player is dealt six cards, examine their holding and discards two into the dealer’s “box”. When it’s your turn to deal it is your box and you can decide to discard two potentially useful cards. When discarding to the opponent’s box, every effort is made not do provide any cards which might increase their score, but this is not always possible. Sometimes it is frustratingly unavoidable.

Once cards have been “boxed” by each player, the pack is cut and the freed card is placed open on the top. If, when the pack is cut, the up-turned card is a Jack, the dealer immediately scores two points – “two for his heals”. I told you that this game is unlike any other.

When the hands are scored later in the game, the exposed card is treated as an extra card so that the scoring for each hand, including the box, is based on five cards.

The decision about which cards to keep and which to put in my “box” or that of my opponent is vitally important. Failure to make the best decisions at this point was the main reason for my losing consistently when I first started to play. Gradually I learned the hard way, and with some patient coaching, about what a good hand looks like, and the odds of cutting the right card to create a hand with a high score.

Here is a typical (good) hand worth a total of 14 points.

If you were scoring just the four cards in the hand, this is described as a “double run”, as the hand scores two runs (8+7+6, 8+7+6) and a pair of 8s (a total of 8 points). If you add the turned-up card (the 9) to make a hand of 5 cards, this extends each run to four cards and so becomes a “double run and one” as follows: 9+8+7+6, 9+8+7+6, plus the pair - a total of 10 points. (10 points would also be scored if the up-turned card had been a 5 as this also extends the run to four cards.)

However, in this case not only does the hand score 10 points for a double run and one, but there are also two 15s to be counted (7+8, 7+8) worth 2 points each, making a total of 14.

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The next diagram shows a “double run” comprising two runs of three cards, plus a pair of eights – a total of eight points. A double run is always worth 8 points plus any 15s to be counted. In this case there are two 15s (7+8) worth two points each. So, in this example, the hand of four cards is worth 12 points.

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This diagram shows a “double run and one”. Each run of four cards (K,Q,J,10) counts as four points, plus a pair of Queens. A total of 10 points. There are no 15s to score.

The “double run” was always the holy grail of a hand or box. That is, a run of three cards with one card duplicated. A “double run” was always worth eight points irrespective of any 15s; two runs of three (6 points) and a pair (2 points). A “double-run-and-one” depended on the cut card duplicating any of my three, was a bonus and always scores 10 points, irrespective of 15s.

I have selected a suitably grubby pack to illustrate various hands because that’s how I learned to do the sums.

From this point on, the game has two more phases – play and scoring the hands. All points scored are recorded at the time, ideally on a crib board.

Play begins with the non-dealer leading a card and players play alternately until all eight cards have been played. Points are scored with two, three or four cards of the same type (two 4s, 3 Queens, 4 Jacks etc) are played one after another. Pairs are scored as two points. Three similar cards make three pairs and so score 6 points, while four cards represent 6 pairs so score 12 points. (See illustration below if unclear.)

Points are scored for runs of three or more and each card in the sequence scores 1 point. These sequences must be unbroken but do not have to be in the correct order, so it can be 2, 3, 4 (scoring 3 points), but 3, 4, 2 also scores 3 points. (Aces are always low, incidentally.) When one player completes a sequence of three (say 5, 6, 7) s/he scores 3 points. If the opponent then adds a four or an 8 s/he scores 4 points and so on.

Points are also scored when a player adds a card which adds up to 15 (2 points) and 31 (2 points). If neither player cannot make 31 they pass and the player who played the last card gets one point. Played cards are turned face down and the play continues until all 8 cards have been used.

As each card is played, the player states the total reached with that card, whether or not it scores. Playing with my grandfather there was a sequence of sayings used when approaching 31 points. So “22” was followed by “9 will do”; “23” “8s a spree”; 24 “7s a score”; 25 “6 alive”; 26 “5s a fix”; 27 “4s eleven”; 28 “3s a mate”; 29 “twos in time”; and 30 “just one”. I have no idea whether this language was just us or more commonly used amongst crib players at that time, but it certainly helped the young me with basic maths and kept the game running quickly.

In general, play was accompanied by a lot of chat about the play. I recall the frequent response to the cut being “that’ll do” or “no good to me” when it did or did not favour the hand. I’m sure modern tournament players would frown at such things, but I remember it as fun and happily joined in as the game progressed.

As to which cards to play there was so much to learn. For example, never lead a “5” unless there was no alternative. All the picture cards, together with the 10, count as ten points, so “15 for 2” scored by your opponent was almost inevitable. If the opponent opened with, say, a 6 and you played another 6 to make a pair, it was possible, even likely, that your opponent would play a further 6 to create 3 sixes and score 6 points. If your opponent opens with a 7 you might play an 8 to make “15 for 2“. The opponent might then play another 8 to make a pair, or, even better, a 6 or a 9 to create a sequence for three points. It is easy to see how points can be made or lost and, if careless, more points can be lost than gained. In time as cards are played it is sometimes possible to work out what your opponent is likely to hold and to play your cards accordingly.

Scoring. Once the play has been completed, hands are counted and scored, starting with the non-dealer and finishing with the dealer and then the box. Points are scored as described above. In addition, if all the cards in a player’s hand are in the same suit it is worth an extra 4 points; if the up-turned card is also of this suit it is worth 5 points. For some reason all five cards have to be in the same suit when scoring the box. All points are recorded on the board as they are counted.

Responsibility for dealing then changes hands, and the whole process starts again. The winner is the first player to reach 121 points, or twice round the board and in the hole. For 200 years or so games were played to 61 (once round the board) but for some reason lost in the mists of time, the Edwardians lengthened the game to 121 points and there for most players it remains.

Cribbage is one of the oldest of the card games and is unlike any other in terms of play and scoring. It is frequently (and in my view correctly) described as the best card game for two players, although it can be adapted for three players or four playing as partners. When played with three, each player is dealt only five cards of which one is deposited in the dealer’s box, together with another random card from the top of the pack. The dealership rotates and play proceeds as with the two-player game.

Cribbage can be a great joy or cause immense frustration. There are days when one dealt hand after another produces a double run or better in almost every deal, leaving an opponent trailing in your wake. In such cases you can “win by a street” (a term derived from cribbage). If you win by 30 plus points it Is called a “skunk”; or by 60 or more points, a “double skunk”. More often than not, it is a close run thing with the lead changing hand several times as the game proceeds.

Towards the end of the game, it can be tense. As the game ends when the first player reaches (or exceeds) 121 points, towards the end it matters greatly in which order the hands are scored. You might, as the dealer and box holder have a huge points score in your hand with the promise of more in the box, but all counts for nought if your opponent “pegs” an unexpected 6 points in the play and scrapes to 121 with a hand of two!

The best hand you can get – and it is not as rare as you might think – is worth 29 points. It comprises three 5s and a Jack, with the upturned card being the remaining 5 which is in the same suit as the Jack.

Above: the best cribbage hand you can get scores 29 points. Four fifteens using the jack (8), four fifteens using just the 5s (8); four 5s providing six pairs (12) and “one for his nob” (1) as the Jack is the same suit as the up-turned five.

Above: the arrows show scoring for pairs (left) and fifteens (right). There are 6 pars of 5s, scoring 12 points; four fifteens scoring 8 points.

The odds of being dealt a 29-point hand are 216,580 to 1. The American Cribbage Congress monitors 29-point hands achieved in tournament play and the observed rate lines up closely with the mathematical odds. Close calls are much more likely when the jack is replaced by any other ten-point card, either in the hand or as the cut card, so the odds of getting a 28 point hand are only 15,028 to 1. In most games you have to settle for a much lower points count while fantasizing about what might have been!

Tony Hall, 26 March 2026