To avoid any potential disputes it's wise to peg points as soon as they are scored. Remember that the dealer always gets to add up their box after their own hand.īoth players move their pegs up (or down) the cribbage board by their respective scores. And if you're the dealer and you 'turn' any jack, you get 'two for his heels'. You also get points for a 'flush' if all the cards in your hand are of the same suit (one point per card) and an extra point if the turn card is also the same suit.įinally, there's 'one for his nob': if your hand contains the jack of the same suit as the turn card, you peg one for his nob. Most of your points come from the show, where you use your cards in combination with the turn card to score multiples, runs (one point per card, so A, 2, 3, 3, 4 gives 10 points: eight for two runs of four - one using each three - plus two for the pair), and two points for all combinations adding up to 15.

You then use your cards to count up your points in the 'show'. The player who lays the last card scores one point - two if they bring the total to 31. When the total of cards laid reaches 31 (or as close as possible), pegging restarts and you count up to 31 again, or until all cards are laid down. Players also score 'multiples' (two points for a pair, six for three of a kind, 12 for four), 'runs' (6, 7, 8, one point per card). The most common way of scoring at this stage is trying to get two points for combinations adding up to 15 (eg J, A, 4 6 and 9 8 and 7), at which point you exclaim '15 two' to win your points. Each player takes turns to lay one card at a time on to their own discard pile, adding the face value of one another's cards each time, in a bid to score points. The next portion of the game called is 'pegging'. Non-dealer cuts the pack and dealer turns the top card of the cut, or the 'turn'. Each player gets six cards, then chooses and discards their worst two cards to make a 'crib', or 'box' - an extra hand of four for the dealer. Cut for deal (lowest wins), which then alternates.

The two-player version is most common, so that's what we'll look at here.Īce is low. Between two and four players can play with anything from three to seven cards (go for five cards in a four-player).

And as you'd expect of a game knocking on 400, many variations have evolved. This may have something to do with the fact that crib has been around since 1630.

Many think of cribbage as an old man's game, and they're not far wrong.

Cribbage how to play