Hi Again first of all Happy Christmas to all my readers, hope you had a swell time partying and opening Christmas presents. I for one got a spanking new Backgammon set which I really enjoyed receiving and which allowed me to dust my backgammon gaming skills after years of abandon due mainly to lack of gaming partners. If you haven’t had an opportunity to play this fascinating game then believe me you have been missing on something good. I would also seriously suggest you get down to using a doubling cube and at least develop a working knowledge of what a 7-point game entails and how to go about playing one.
Yet people this is not about Backgammon but about a fascinating British born game which I have grown to enjoy though it still frustrates me at times. I’m here referring to the game called Cribbage. Cribbage was born as a pub game and employs a very peculiar scoring board which takes many forms, shapes and sizes but which is normally composed of 2 tracks of 60 or 120 +1 holes and four small wooden pegs which are used to keep individual scores on said board.
The game employs some jargon that goes with playing it but personally I do not think it should be considered a hurdle towards learning this card game. So how would a game of Cribbage play out?
Goal
For starters the goal is to peg (or score) 121 points, whoever gets there first wins the game.
Dealing and Choosing the Dealer
For the purpose of the following descriptions we will be assuming a 2-player game. So in order to determine who will be the first Dealer, one player (or both) will take turns the shuffle the deck and turn over one card each. The player turning over the highest ranking card wins. If both players turn over a card of equal rank for instance both turn over a King, then suits come into play with Spades ranking highest followed by Heart, Diamonds and Clubs lowest.
The designated dealer then shuffles the deck a second time and deals 6 cards to each player face-down.
Building the Crib
In Cribbage the Dealer gets to also play a secondary hand called a Crib. This Crib is made up of two cards contributed by each of the two players and is scored later in the game. Obviously The Dealer will want to place the best possible card combinations into the Crib whereas his opponent called the “Pone” would want to give the Dealer the worst card combinations possible. Determining what cards to throw into the Crib is perhaps the most important skill to master in Cribbage.
When both players, that is the Dealer and the Pone have both placed their two chosen cards into the Crib, a situation develops whereby both players now end up with four cards in their hand with a separate four-card Crib which as indicated earlier will be scored by the Dealer later on in the game.
The Up turned card
Once the Crib has been built the Dealer once again shuffles the deck of cards, cuts the shuffled deck and deals one card face up to the table. This card will be uses to score both players hands as well as the Crib but is not used during Play. If this card happens to be a Jack, then the Dealer immediately scores 2 points calling this score “for his heels” or something of the sort but essentially he gets two cool points before even bothering with hitting off the Play.
Play
This is where the game becomes interesting. Basically both players starting with the Pone take turns to turn over one card at a time from the four dealt them but making sure they do not exceed 31 points. If no one can play a card without going beyond 31 then the last player to play a valid card to the table gets 1 point “for last”. If on the other hand a player can play a card to score exactly 31 points then he gets 2 points.
It is important to note that at no point during Play are either players cards piled on top of each other or mixed in any way. Each player lays the cards in front of him NOT on the other player’s cards. As soon as 31 is reached or no valid card can be played without going over 31, each player places his cards aside and a fresh round of play commences till all players play ALL their cards.
Scoring
We have already seen that a Dealer earns 2 free points if he draws a Jack as the Up-card. We have also seen that a player who plays the last valid card in Play gets 1 point (if he does not make a 31) or 2 points if he achieves 31 points exactly. There are however more scoring options and whenever a player does score he moves his “peg” along the Cribbage board for an amount of holes equal to the points scored. So for example if he scores 4 points, he moves his peg 4 points forward on the board.
“15” – fifteen is a very important number in Cribbage, during Play or scoring when a player successfully scores 15 points he also scores 2 points on the Cribbage board.
“Pairs” – pairs score 2 points in Cribbage, interestingly three-of-a-kind are also scored for as many pair combinations as it is possible to extract from them…so three-of-a-kind which offers 6 possible pair combinations scores 6-points and four-of-a-kind scores 12 points for the same reason.
“Runs” – A run is a sequence of three or more cards. A Run of three cards (e.g. 4-5-6) earns the player 3-points a Run of 4 cards (e.g. 10-J-Q-K) earns the player 4-points so on and so forth. Interestingly unlike when forming pairs or three or four-of-a-kind a Run need not be played in perfect sequence to count.
“His nobs” – This is basically holding a Jack in hand in the same suit as the original up-turned card. However here the lucky player gets 1 point not 2. Additionally this score can hypothetically be scored by either the Dealer or Pone.
“Flush” – As in poker four cards of the same suit earn the player an additional 2 points however this score is NOT scored during the Play phase of a hand of Cribbage but later when scoring the individual hands.
Scoring Hands
Once the Play segment of a hand of Cribbage is over, players now proceed with scoring their individual hands. As happens during the Play stage, it’s not the Dealer that scores first but his opponent or the “Pone”. Also the Up-turned card exposed at the start of the hand by the Dealer is now considered as being part of the hands being scored for example:-
Player A has 5-8-10-J and Player B has 3-3-9-K and the up-turned card is a 9. Suits as you might have surmised by now are irrelevant towards scoring. The sole exception being when scoring for his nobs since the Jack must be of the same suit as the up-turned card.
So for a hand composed of 5-8-10-J-9, Player A scores:-
4 points for 15 X 2 (5-10 and 5-J) and an additional 4 points for a Run of four 8-9-10-J. Player A scores 8 points for his hand.
With a hand composed of 3-3-9-K-9, Player B scores:-
4 points for 15X2 (3-3-9 and 3-3-9) 2 points for 3-3 and 2 points for 9-9. Player B also scores 8 point for his hand.
However Scoring is not over until the Dealer also scores the Crib he is entitled to. Again any scores accrued are added to the total scored so far and pegged on the Cribbage board accordingly.
…and that’s all there is to know about playing a hand of Cribbage…or almost.
Obviously then as indicated earlier players play a number of hands with Dealership moving from player to player until such time that one player attains or exceeds the 121 score. It must also be worth noting that it is possible for a player to reach the target score mid-hand. when this happens the hand is considered concluded as would be the game. From this we can arrive to understand why the Pone is given the right to play and score first, since otherwise he would be at a terrible disadvantage with respect to the Dealer who scores for both his hand and the Crib.
Muggins, Skunks and Stink Holes
When I first read about these particular terms associated with Cribbage I could not help but laugh. The first term Muggins, well it reminded me of Harry Potter where humans were called Muggles. In Cribbage however scoring Muggins means scoring for points an opponent failed to count in the first place. I personally think it is a very cheeky rule and I would personally advise against using it during play especially if either player is new to Cribbage and still learning his ropes so to speak. To win by a Skunk or a double Skunk means to win with a difference of 31 and 61 points respectively. Finally the Stink Hole is the nickname given to the 120th hole, just one off winning a game (121). It feels obvious to me that these colourful terms stem directly from the pub culture that spawned this game.
Playing 3 and 4 Handed
It is also possible to play 3-handed (3 players) or 4-handed (4 players). Obviously you would need a board that can tackle four players or alternatively 2 boards that can tackle 2 player each. Additionally in the case of a 3-handed game the player deals one card from the deck to the Crib and the remaining three cards are contributed by each of the three players who are initially dealt five and not six cards. Turns follow a clockwise direction.
In a four-handed game each player is dealt five cards and each then contributes one card to the the Crib to bring the Crib total to four. All other rules remain the same for both three-handed and four-handed play.
Conclusion
Cribbage is a great game and can offer hours of fun. As with all pub games, Cribbage can also be played for small stakes but it is still a lot of fun even if it is played competitively for points. It also teases the mind forcing each player to constantly think on what cards might score the most points when placed in the Crib. From my very limited experience I can assure you that the most improbable card combinations end up scoring you the most points on the board. Regardless as with most card games this is a game that you will learn by playing mostly.
Post Scriptum
The promised video review of some of the decks in my collection is still in the pipe-works but I hope to be able to put it up by the first week of January latest. Until then, Happy holidays and a Happy New Year 2012 to all!
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