How to play Cribbage

1 player vs computer, or 2 online

Be the first to 121 points. Points come from the cards you lay during the play and from counting your hand and the crib afterwards.

The rules, step by step

1. 1

   Six cards each. Both players throw two face down into the crib, which belongs to whoever dealt. The deal alternates.

2. 2

   A starter card is cut. If it is a jack, the dealer pegs 2 for it straight away.

3. 3

   The play: starting with the non-dealer, take turns laying a card face up and calling the running total. It may not go past 31.

4. 4

   While laying: 15 pegs 2, 31 pegs 2, a pair pegs 2, a third of the same rank pegs 6, a fourth pegs 12, and a run of three or more pegs a point a card.

5. 5

   If you cannot lay without passing 31, the other player keeps laying. When neither can, the last player to lay pegs 1 and the total goes back to nought.

6. 6

   The show: count the non-dealer's hand, then the dealer's, then the crib — each with the starter as a fifth card. Fifteens are 2 each, pairs 2 each, runs a point a card, four of a suit in hand is 4, and the jack of the starter's suit is 1.

7. 7

   Deal again. The first player to reach 121 wins immediately, which is why counting first matters.

Three tips that change how you play

• Keep fives. A five is worth more than any other card in the deck, because there are sixteen cards worth ten and every one of them makes fifteen with it. A pair of fives is a fifteen, a pair and two more fifteens with any ten-card cut.
• Never lay a card that leaves the total at 5 or 21. Any of those sixteen ten-cards makes fifteen or thirty-one on top of it, and your opponent is holding an average of one and a half of them.
• Lead a four rather than a five. Leading a five hands over two points to any ten-card; leading a four means the ten-card only makes fourteen, and you may get a run out of it afterwards.

One throw, worked through

You are dealt five of hearts, five of spades, four of diamonds, six of clubs, king of hearts and two of spades, and it is your crib. Keeping the two fives and the four and six looks obvious, and it is: fifteen from the four, five and six, fifteen twice more from each five with any ten-card, a pair for the fives, and a run of three made two ways because there are two fives — twelve points before the starter is even turned, and more with almost any cut. That leaves the king and the two to throw. Into your own crib they are nearly worthless, and you throw them anyway, because breaking the hand to feed the crib would cost more than the crib could return. Now suppose it is the dealer's crib instead. The same throw is the right one for a different reason: a king and a two together are about as little use to them as any two cards you are holding. The hand you keep is the same; what changed is what you were weighing it against.

Three mistakes that cost beginners the game

Throwing the same two cards to your crib and to theirs.

The crib is a fifth hand and it belongs to the dealer. Into your own, throw fives, pairs, two cards adding to fifteen, or touching cards — anything that scores. Into theirs, throw a king and an ace: a king can only run one way and an ace is hard to make anything with. Getting this backwards costs about four points a deal.

Keeping the hand that counts most and forgetting the starter.

Your four cards get a fifth one added before they are counted, so what matters is what the hand is worth on average across every card that could be cut. Four touching cards beat a flat sixes-and-nines hand for exactly this reason, and it is what the hard opponent is calculating.

Playing the show as if the order does not matter.

It matters enormously in a close game. The non-dealer counts first, so at 118 apiece a non-dealer with eight points wins before the dealer counts a hand worth twelve. When you are near the target, count what the other player needs before you decide what to throw away.

Common questions about Cribbage