I remember first seeing Cribbage in my parent's game closet. The thing that made me want to learn to play was that the box had images of horses on it and made it look like it related to horse racing. Since one of my fondest dreams in childhood was to own a horse I was drawn to what I thought this game was. It turns out it has pretty much nothing to do with horses - though I suppose the players are racing around a track with their pegs. I don't remember when I first learned how to play, but early in our marriage David and I used to play game after game of this - nearly endlessly.
Above and below are pictures of our first hand today. I dealt first, so David laid a card first, and the "crib" (4 cards off to the right-hand side) was mine. Six cards for each hand, but then each player has to decide which 4 of those cards to keep and which 2 to put into the crib for the dealer. Scoring takes place as you lay cards (for hitting 15, hitting 31, getting closest to 31 before restarting the count, for a "pair," for runs, for "his nobs" and for "his heels" - these last two having to do with jacks). Scoring also takes place after all cards are laid, with points having to do with pairs, runs, and sums of 15. The player who didn't deal counts first, then the dealer counts points for the hand and then also for the crib. The card flipped up on top of the deck counts towards for each player in this scoring. That card turned out to be amazing for David on this first hand! The 4 cards in his hand were worth 6 points to begin with: 2 for a pair of 7s, and 2 each for 7+8=15. With the 9 on top of the deck, he has two runs of four, which adds 8 points to his total here.
Below is a later hand for me - not bad with a pair of 2s and two sums of 15 (four sums of 15 with the face-up card). I remember it being a hard choice as to what to put in the crib. It was David's deal. One of my other cards was an ace, so I already had a double-run of three, which was hard to give up, but I didn't want to put the jack in the crib for him, and these four cards are 6 points as that double-run would have been. The decisions in this game can be tough - what to keep and what to put in the crib and what order to play your cards in.
Below is a crib that came up well for me - combined with the face-up 2 I have a double-run of 3 plus the 15s that are in there.
You can tell from the scuffing around the starting holes that we have played this game a lot over the years.
The price tag also gives witness to how long we have had this game - and to how much we've gotten our money's worth out of it!
NOTE: Although this game involves a board, I've labeled it as a card game rather than a board game. Technically the board is just a fancy device for keeping score, which could be done just fine with paper and pencil.
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