About CribbageMatches
CribbageMatches is a free place to play two-player cribbage in your browser — against the computer, against a ranked opponent, or across a private table with a friend. Nothing to download, nothing to pay for, and no ads.
What you can play here
- Against the computer — four difficulties (Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert), no account required.
- Ranked online — matchmaking pairs you with a human opponent near your rating, over a full game to 121 or a quick game to 61.
- With a friend — open a private table and send the join link. Your friend can sit down as a guest without making an account; guest games are unrated for both seats.
Every finished online game is saved with a hand-by-hand replay you can step back through, and games survive a dropped connection — close the tab, come back, and you rejoin where you left off.
The counting is done for you
When a hand is shown, the table counts it and walks the points one at a time — each fifteen, pair, run, flush, and nobs — so you can see exactly where the total came from instead of taking it on faith. Muggins isn't used here. If you want a little more help while pegging, there's an optional count preview that shows what a card would make before you play it — it starts on for new players learning on the easier difficulties, and can be toggled in Settings any time.
Ratings and seasons
Ranked games move an Elo-style rating. Everyone starts at 1200, and your first fifteen games move your rating faster than later ones so a new account finds its level quickly. The leaderboard runs by calendar month, and past seasons stay browsable. Games against the computer and games with a guest seat don't affect ratings.
Where the rules come from
The rules this site implements are standard two-player cribbage, and our reference for them is Wikipedia's Rules of cribbage. We leaned on it for the corners that house rules disagree about: scoring a go versus landing exactly on 31, how runs form during the play, counting order at the show, and the crib flush needing all five cards. Wikipedia's text is licensed CC BY-SA; the write-ups on this site are our own words, not a copy of it.
Our own versions are here: how to play, the full rules, the scoring chart, and some strategy.
What it's built with
An ASP.NET Core server on .NET 9 with live games over SignalR, a React front end built with Vite, and SQLite for storage. Typefaces are served by Google Fonts. There are no ad networks and no analytics or tracking scripts on the site — fonts are the only third party your browser talks to here.
Your account and your data
A free account (email and password, plus the display name other players see) is what unlocks ranked play, your game history, and the leaderboard. You can delete it from your profile at any time: any game still in progress is settled first, and then your account and the personal data attached to it are erased.