9 Tips to Help You Master the Game of Cribbage

Cribbage rewards the player who thinks a hand or two ahead. The math is simple, the deck is ordinary, and yet the same people tend to win, because they know when to hold a five, when to give one away, and what to bury in the crib. If you have just learned the game or dusted off a board that has been in a drawer since last winter, these nine tips will move you from counting on your fingers to pegging out first. For the full backstory of the game, see our history of cribbage.

1. Fight to deal first

Every game opens with a cut, and the player who turns the lowest card deals. Treat that cut as something worth winning. The dealer owns the crib, the extra hand that scores at the end of the round, and over a full game to 121 that edge adds up. The numbers back it up: a player who deals first wins roughly six games out of ten. Two players get six cards each and discard two into the crib. Three or four players get five cards each. Most wood cribbage boards are drilled for the standard 121-point game, with a shorter 61-point track for a quicker round.

2. Learn the language before you sit down

Half the pleasure of cribbage is the vocabulary, and knowing it keeps you from leaving points on the table. The pone is the non-dealer, the player who cuts the deck. Muggins is the rule that lets you claim points your opponent forgot to peg, so a sharp eye during counting turns their mistake into your score. A skunk is a win by 31 to 60 points, and a double skunk is a win by more than 60. Nobs is the jack that matches the suit of the turn-up card, worth one point. The stinkhole is the 120th hole, one short of victory, and the last place you ever want to park a peg. Rows on the board are called streets, and their ends are corners.

3. Drill your counting until it is automatic

You will never need more than grade-school addition, but you do need it fast and error-free. Any combination of cards adding to fifteen is worth two points. A pair is two, three of a kind is six, and four of a kind is twelve. Runs score by length: a run of three is three points, a run of four is four, a run of five is five. A flush of four cards is four points. The trap is miscounting your own hand, because once you have pegged and moved on, those points are gone for good. Count the same way every time, fifteens first, then pairs, then runs, then flush and nobs, so nothing slips past. This is also why cribbage makes such a good family game. The arithmetic is gentle enough for a child and quick enough for a grandparent.

The perfect hand

The highest possible score in a single hand is 29, and it is a beautiful thing to see. It takes all four fives plus a jack, with one five as the turn-up card and the jack matching that turn-up suit for nobs. The odds of it landing are about 216,580 to one, which is why players who go decades without one talk about the day it finally came. Chase it if you like, but do not reshape a solid hand around a fantasy. The steady two and three-point hands are what win games.

4. Plan your opening lead

The play, the phase where you alternate cards toward a running count of 31, is where good players quietly pull ahead. If you hold a pair, leading one of them is a strong opener. Your opponent will often answer with a matching card for a pair of their own, and then you drop the third for a pair royal and six points. If you have no pair, lead a low card, a two, three, or four, so your opponent cannot reach fifteen on the next play and take two points off you.

5. Bait runs and combinations

You cannot see your opponent's cards, but you can tempt them into building your score. Lead a seven and they may play an eight to reach fifteen, at which point your nine completes a run of three for three points. Skilled players are always dangling cards that look harmless and set up a run or a fifteen on the return. Think of every card you play as a question you are asking the other side of the table.

6. Stack your own crib, starve theirs

The crib scores for the dealer, so what you throw into it matters as much as what you keep. When the crib is yours, feed it cards that work together: two cards in sequence, a pair, a five, or a face card like a king or queen that pairs easily with a ten-count card for fifteen. When the crib belongs to your opponent, do the opposite. Discard two cards that share nothing, avoid pairs, avoid anything that adds to five or fifteen, and leave them a weak crib. One rule holds above the rest: never gut a good hand just to spoil a crib. The points in your hand are certain, and the crib is a gamble.

7. Play your fives early

The five is the most dangerous card to be holding late in the play, because so many cards pair with it to make fifteen. If you are on the defensive, lead a five early and let it go while the count is low. Yes, you may hand the dealer a shot at fifteen, but the dealer very likely holds cards that would push the count past fifteen anyway, costing them the chance. Getting your problem card off the table first, and possibly denying the dealer points in the process, beats clutching a five until it traps you.

8. Save low cards for the go

A go happens when the player whose turn it is cannot lay a card without pushing the count over 31. They call out "go," and the other player pegs any cards that still fit, then takes one point for the go itself, or two for landing exactly on 31. The count then resets to zero and the player who called go leads the next sequence. The lesson is to keep a couple of low cards, an ace or a two, in reserve. They let you squeeze in the last legal card and claim the go rather than hand it away.

9. Pick a board worth playing on

Strategy keeps you in the game, but the board is what keeps you coming back to it. Size is the first practical question. A pocket board slips into a bag for a flight or a campsite, a travel board holds up on a boat or a porch table, and a full-size board earns a permanent spot at home. Beyond size, the board can be an object worth looking at between rounds. Every Woodchart cribbage board is a real nautical chart of a place that means something, carved into birch and drilled for pegs. It counts your points during the game and hangs on the wall as a map the rest of the time. Choose the water you know: a home lake, the coast where you spent every summer, or the country your family came from, whether that is the Great Lakes or Ireland.

Now go play

The tips matter, but the point of cribbage has always been the company. It is a four-hundred-year-old game because two people, a deck, and a board are all it has ever asked for, and because a round tends to turn into three. Learn the counting, respect the fives, guard your crib, and the wins will follow. When you are ready to trade plastic pegs for something with a story, browse the full collection of wood cribbage boards or the best sellers and find the water that feels like home.