How to Play Cribbage: Rules and Scoring for 2 or 3 Players

Cribbage is a card game scored on a pegboard, and it has been played in pubs and at kitchen tables since the seventeenth century. It looks complicated because of the counting. Once the counting clicks, it is one of the best two-player card games there is.

What you need

A standard 52-card deck and a cribbage board with pegs. The board keeps score: each point moves your peg one hole. The first to 121 wins.

Card values

Aces count 1, number cards their face value, and jacks, queens and kings count 10. Card ranks matter for runs: A-2-3 is a run; Q-K-A is not, because aces are low.

The deal (two players)

Cut for deal; the lower card deals. The dealer gives six cards to each player. Each player then discards two face down into the crib, which belongs to the dealer and is counted at the end of the hand.

The non-dealer cuts the deck and the dealer turns up the top card: the starter. If it is a jack, the dealer pegs 2 points straight away ("two for his heels").

The play (pegging)

Starting with the non-dealer, players take turns laying one card face up in front of themselves, calling out the running total of all cards played. The total may not go over 31.

You score during the play for:

• making the total exactly 15: 2 points
• making it exactly 31: 2 points
• a pair (same rank as the card just played): 2; three of a kind: 6; four: 12
• a run of three or more in any order among the last cards played: 1 point per card
• Go: if you cannot play without passing 31, say "go". Your opponent plays any cards they can, and the last player to lay a card scores 1 (or 2 for exactly 31). The count then starts again from zero.
• The last card of the play scores 1.

The show (counting the hands)

Each player picks up their four cards and counts them together with the starter. The non-dealer counts first, then the dealer, then the dealer counts the crib.

• every combination of cards that adds to 15: 2 points
• every pair: 2 points
• every run of three or more: 1 point per card
• a flush: four cards in the hand of one suit is 4, five with the starter is 5. The crib only scores a flush if all five match.
• His nobs: the jack of the same suit as the starter, in hand or crib: 1 point

Then the deal passes to the other player.

Three-player cribbage

Deal five cards each and one card face down to the crib. Each player discards one to the crib, so it still holds four. Play and scoring are the same; the turn goes clockwise. A three-track board, like ours, has a track for each player.

Common phrases

"Fifteen two, fifteen four, and a pair is six" — counting aloud is part of the game. A "skunk" is winning before your opponent reaches 91 — usually worth a double game.

A little history

Cribbage is credited to the English poet Sir John Suckling in the 1630s, who adapted an older game called noddy. It has been the card game of English pubs, the Royal Navy and American submariners ever since.