New Thing #357--The Crib

Tony has offered to teach me a couple of times before, but today I learned how to play cribbage.

Cribbage is a card game that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations to earn points. A distinctive feature is the cribbage board (which has a series of holes and a set of pegs for each player) that's used to keep score. The object of the game is to obtain 121 points before your opponent does. This is accomplished by "pegging", or moving your pegs around the board.

The major rules of the game:

To start the game, each player is dealt six cards. Both players pick two cards from their hands and place them face down to form a "crib" that's used by the dealer at the end of play. The "pone", or non-dealer, cuts the remainder of the pack to select a starter card, which is used in counting the value of each player's hand and the crib.

The pone lays down the first card, then the players take turns laying cards down trying to get to 31 points. The cumulative value of the cards played is announced as each card is played. Face cards are 10 points, aces are 1 point, and everything else is its numerical value. When a player cannot play a card without the total exceeding 31, that player calls "go" and the opponent continues to play all cards possible.

After all the cards have been played on the table, the second part of the game takes place. Each player reexamines their cards, trying to get points for different combinations of cards in their hands. As points are earned, the peg is moved on the cribbage board.

Tony was a good sport as I tried to remember all the rules and the intricate scoring of the game. He even pointed out some points I missed, even though by some rules he could have taken advantage of my mistake and claimed the points for his own.