Learn to play cribbage

Cribbage in a minute

Cribbage was invented in England around 1630 by a poet named Sir John Suckling, who built it out of an older game called noddy. The rules have barely moved since. It is still the card game of British pubs and American submarines, and it is one of the very few card games that comes with its own board.

The goal is simple. Points move your peg along a track of 121 holes, and the first peg to the end wins. You score in two places, once while the cards are played and again when you count your hand, and you peg every point the moment it happens.

Every hand has the same five beats.

1. Deal six cards each
2. Throw two to the crib
3. Cut one card for all
4. Play count to 31
5. Show score your hand

The six stops below take those beats in order, then put them together in three guided hands. Each stop has something to play with, and none of them takes more than a few minutes.

Or read the whole rulebook further down this page, with a scoring chart and the questions beginners ask most.

The full rules on one page

The six stops above are the best way in, because you get to play with each rule as you meet it. If you would rather read the whole game first, here it is, start to finish. Wherever a rule has a stop that teaches it hands on, there is a link straight into it.

What you need

Cribbage takes two players, a standard 52 card deck, and a board with 121 holes per player. The board is only a scorekeeper, so pencil and paper work fine if you do not have one. Cards rank from King down to Ace, with Ace always low. For counting, face cards are worth ten, Aces are worth one, and every other card is worth its number. Suits only matter for flushes and for one lucky Jack you will meet below.

There are three and four player variants, but two player cribbage is the classic game and the one these pages teach. A game to 121 usually runs 15 to 30 minutes.

The deal

Cut the deck to decide who deals first, and the lower card takes it. The dealer shuffles and gives each player six cards, one at a time. After each hand is scored, the deal passes to the other player and keeps alternating all game. Dealing is a real advantage, because the dealer owns the crib for that hand, so the game trades the edge back and forth.

Deal a hand at the first stop

The throw and the crib

Both players look at their six cards and throw two of them face down into a shared pile called the crib. That leaves each player a hand of four. The crib belongs to the dealer, who sets it aside and scores it at the end of the hand as a bonus hand. When the crib is yours, throw cards that work together. When it is your rival's, starve it. This one decision, what to keep and what to throw, carries more strategy than anything else in cribbage.

Work through eight real throws at the first stop

The cut

The non-dealer cuts the deck and the dealer turns the top card face up. That card is the starter, usually just called the cut. Nobody holds it, but it counts as a fifth card in both hands and in the crib when scoring time comes. And if the cut is a Jack, the dealer pegs two points on the spot, a score called his heels.

Turn the cut at the first stop

Pegging, the play to 31

Starting with the non-dealer, you take turns laying cards face up, announcing the running total of everything played so far. The count can never pass 31. You score during this play, and you peg every point the moment it happens. Landing the count exactly on 15 scores two. Matching the last card played makes a pair for two, a third matching card scores six, and a fourth scores twelve. Completing a run of three or more, in any order, scores a point per card. The run cards have to be played back to back, so any card that does not belong breaks the run.

If you cannot play without passing 31, say go. Your rival lays whatever cards they still legally can, and once neither of you can move the count resets to zero and the play continues until every card is down. Playing the last card of a sequence scores 1. If that last card lands on 31, the 2 for thirty-one replaces it. They never stack.

Play out three worked lines at the pegging stop

The show, counting your hand

Once the cards are down, each player counts their four cards plus the cut. The non-dealer always counts first, then the dealer counts their hand, and then the dealer counts the crib the same way. Every combination counts, and the same card can sit in more than one. Each distinct set of cards adding to fifteen scores two. Each pair scores two. Runs of three or more score one per card. Four hand cards of one suit score four, and five with the cut scores five. Holding the Jack of the cut card's suit scores one, called nobs. The crib is stricter about one thing. A flush in the crib only counts when all four crib cards and the cut share one suit, and it is always worth five.

Counting order decides close games. Because the non-dealer counts first, they can peg out and win before the dealer ever gets to count a bigger hand.

Count five worked hands at the show stop

The board and winning

Each player pegs down a track of 121 holes, using two pegs and leapfrogging them so your last score always stays visible. The first peg into hole 121 wins immediately, whether the point came from the play, the hand, or the crib, and the game can end in the middle of a hand. Win before your rival reaches hole 91 and you have skunked them, which counts as two games. Win before they reach hole 61 and that is a double skunk, the score this site's game is named after.

Walk the skunk lines at the board stop

Common questions