How to Play Cribbage
Cribbage is a two-player card game that's been played for nearly 400 years, and it's easier than it looks: deal six cards, keep four, and race your opponent to 121 points. Here's a full hand, step by step.
What you need
A standard 52-card deck and a cribbage board — the wooden board with 121 holes per player that's used to keep score (each point you score is "pegged" by moving a peg forward). Card values: aces count 1, face cards count 10, everything else counts its number. Suits only matter for flushes and "nobs".
1. The deal and the crib
Players cut for first deal (lowest card deals), and the deal alternates every hand. The dealer gives each player six cards. Both players then choose two cards to discard face-down into the crib — an extra four-card hand that belongs to the dealer and is counted at the end of the hand. Keeping the best four and feeding (or starving) the crib is the first big decision in every hand.
2. The cut
The non-dealer cuts the deck and the dealer turns up the top card: the starter. It isn't used during the play, but later it counts as a fifth card in both hands and the crib. If the starter is a jack, the dealer immediately pegs 2 points ("his heels").
3. The play (pegging)
Starting with the non-dealer, players take turns laying one card face-up, announcing the running total of all cards played. The total may never pass 31. You score points as you go:
- Making the count exactly 15 — 2 points
- Pairing the previous card — 2 points (three of a kind 6, four of a kind 12)
- Completing a run of three or more with the latest cards played, in any order — 1 point per card
- Making the count exactly 31 — 2 points
If you can't play without passing 31, you say "go": your opponent keeps playing while they can, then pegs 1 point (or 2 if they land exactly on 31). The count resets to zero and play continues until all eight cards are down; the last card played pegs 1.
4. The show (counting hands)
Now each hand is counted with the starter card included, always in the same order: non-dealer's hand first, then the dealer's hand, then the crib (which only the dealer scores). You score every combination of fifteens (2 each), pairs, runs, flushes, and nobs — a jack matching the starter's suit. The full list is on the cribbage scoring chart. The counting order matters at the end of a game: if the non-dealer counts out to 121 first, the dealer's hand never gets counted.
5. Winning
Points peg the moment they're scored — during play or during the show — and the first player to reach 121 wins on the spot, even mid-hand. Short on time? A "quick" game plays to 61.
The fastest way to learn
Reading only gets you so far — cribbage clicks after a few hands. On our free table the counting is done for you with a walkthrough of every point, and on Easy difficulty a preview shows what each card would score before you play it. Once you're comfortable, read up on strategy and the finer points of the rules.