Cribbage

Cribbage is a race to 121 for two players, over as many hands as it takes. Points are pegged as you go, so the score moves several times a hand.

A hand, start to finish

1. Six cards each. Throw two to the crib: an extra hand that belongs to the dealer, marked D beside the score. You both throw, so the crib holds four.
2. The starter is cut from the rest of the pack. If it is a jack, the dealer takes 2 for his heels straight away.
3. The pegging. The player who did not deal lays the first card, then you alternate, calling the running total aloud. It may never pass 31.
4. The show. The non-dealer counts their four cards first, then the dealer, then the dealer counts the crib. The starter counts as a fifth card for everybody.
5. The deal passes, and the next hand begins.

Pegging points

• Fifteen (the total reaches exactly 15): 2
• Thirty-one (the total reaches exactly 31): 2
• Pair (you match the card just laid): 2. A third of the same rank: 6. A fourth: 12
• Run (the last three or more cards make a run in any order): 1 a card
• The go (your opponent cannot play under 31 and neither can you): 1 for the last card laid. (Reaching 31 exactly scores 2 instead.)

If you have no card that fits under 31, the game says go for you and play carries on with whoever can still lay one; there is nothing to tap.

Counting a hand

• Fifteens (every set of cards adding to 15): 2 each
• Pairs (every two cards of the same rank): 2 each (three of a kind is three pairs, so 6; four is six pairs, so 12)
• Runs (three or more in rank order): 1 a card, counted once for every way the run can be made
• Flush (all four of your cards in one suit): 4, and 5 if the starter matches too. A crib needs all five
• His nob (the jack of the starter's suit, in your hand or the crib): 1

Aces are low: A-2-3 is a run, Q-K-A is not. Kings, queens, jacks and tens are all worth ten towards a fifteen or a thirty-one.

Winning

The first to 121 wins the moment they get there, which is why the non-dealer counts first. A game can end in the middle of the pegging, or before the dealer has shown a card.

Two house rules: there is no muggins, so a count you miss is never taken by your opponent; every hand scores exactly what it is worth. And saying go is automatic, because you never have a choice about it.