We finally started making a video of us playing CrossCribb. It took a while, partly because it takes more time to finish a game than we thought it would. If we’re playing it right, each hand or round takes about 8-10 minutes including scoring. We figure you’re supposed to play to 31, according to the rules. We played and filmed 6 rounds before our camera’s battery had to be recharged. We were 30-29 at that point with me leading.
Later when the battery was recharged, we played the 7th round. I won by a nose.
I’m not sure that making an hour long CrossCribb video will win any academy awards so I might plan this as a series of videos, one per round.
Playing it is a lot of fun! No wonder it has won awards. Knowing how to count cribbage points in cards gives you a leg up on playing and scoring.
We’ve been practicing CrossCribb and Kings Cribbage. They don’t play anything like regular cribbage, but they’re both really fun.
CrossCribb plays faster than Kings Cribbage so we played it first. Although we weren’t sure what the rule meant by saying one way to win is by “15 points or less” in a game that goes only to 31 points, we still thought it made us think about our strategy—for blocking each other.
What confused us at first is which side of the board each of is supposed to play on. In the two-player version, you sort of sit kitty corner, catty corner, or kattywumpus to each other, depending on what part of the United States you’re from. This is because one person faces the columns marked with circles and the other faces the columns marked with diamonds. That’s what the instructions tell you.
Like in regular cribbage, you choose the dealer by cutting the deck and low card gets the deal. Deal 14 cards each face down and no peeking. Non-dealer cuts and dealer turns over the cut card as usual, but places it in the center of the board.
Non-dealer leads by playing a card to anywhere on the board, which is divided into 5×5 grid, which will give 5 hands to each player to score after cards are played to each rectangular spot. You alternate play but you have to remember to toss two of your cards to the dealer’s crib, which are placed under the very handsome Dealer’s Crib chip, which reminds you of Las Vegas.
The idea is to strategically place your cards to build high scoring cribbage hands while blocking your opponent from doing the same.
The center row and column will score the Nob Jack point for you if you play a card on one of those spots. Remember, the cut card is in the center and if it’s a Jack, the dealer scores two points. However, these are not scored until after all the hands are formed on the board.
You win if you get to 31 first, which is marked in a little schematic of a cribbage scoring board on the scoresheet. However, you also win if:
You win by 15 points or less (we confess we’re not sure yet how that works)
You win by 16 points or more, which is a skunk
You win by 31 points, which is a double skunk
We each won a game, if we played it right. We’ll get this sorted out before we make a video—we hope.
Kings Cribbage is a slower game. We played for what felt like almost an hour and a half. It seemed a little more difficult to get the hang of it, even though we play Scrabble, and Kings Cribbage is a marriage of Scrabble and Cribbage. You form cribbage hands instead of words.
The tiles are made of wood, with two different colors to represent two different suits so you can’t peek when you pick your five tiles. The tiles represent cards. First you each pick tiles to see who plays first. Low tile gets first play and can play two to five tiles anywhere on the board as long as they make valid cribbage hands. After that you can play from one to five tiles, replenishing after each play.
The board rotates so you can see what you’re doing. The first player gets a 10-point bonus right off the bat—which helped me. Normally, I lose about every Scrabble game we play, but I won this time, even without the bonus. You can only play cribbage hands that are at most five tiles long.
Those of you who know how to play each of these games can check our work. We’d appreciate it if you commented on any mistakes you find.
Kings Cribbage and CrossCribb are here! I had a quick look at the rules for both and they don’t look complicated. We’re ahead because we already know how to score cribbage hands.
The packages contained everything you need and nothing was broken. CrossCribb even has a handsome medallion to identify who’s the dealer and gets the crib.
We may put together a video pretty soon, after we’ve played a few games.
I ran across this article in the Portland Press Herald the other day about the renaissance of cribbage since the pandemic began a couple of years ago. It was about that time that Sena and I began again to play cribbage (in November of 2019 to be exact) after about 20 years hiatus.
We picked up the basic rules fairly quickly. It takes a while to master the game though. We are by no means masters.
In the story there is speculation that they can tell that there has been about a 20% increase in interest in cribbage because that’s about the rate at which new cribbage boards are being purchased. It’s assumed that once you have a cribbage board you don’t really want or need another one.
That’s not the case with me and Sena. We’ve purchased about a half a dozen over the last two years. To be sure, they’re not all boards. The Chicago Cribbage game variant doesn’t have a board with it but has several modifications of the rules as well as handsome cards. And we’re going to get a couple of cribbage board games, Kings Cribbage and CrossCribb.
The comments are very interesting below the story. One person claimed that his grandfather abruptly stopped teaching him cribbage when he got 29 scores in both the hand and the crib. Another commenter pointed out that this was mathematically impossible since you’d have to have more than 7 fives in the deck. Another commenter indicated that it was possible. I’m not sure what to say about the knowledge base of some cribbage players.
The story quotes David Aiken, a board member of the American Cribbage Congress (ACC) and editor of Cribbage World. He said that cribbage has been an older person’s game, for the most part. A lot of the cribbage clubs that had sponsored tournaments stopped hosting them. But that’s starting to turn around.
The story also says that cribbage takes a long time to learn and that it’s about equal parts luck and skill.
That got me to searching around on the web for other stories about cribbage and it finally led me to a story about a guy named Rollie Heath.
Rollie says the game is about 90% luck and about 15 percent skill. That’s pretty darn close to what another cribbage master said about the breakdown of luck and skill, Frank Lake. Rally mentioned the Theory of 26. This was invented by another cribbage master named DeLynn Colvert. I have Colvert’s book but have not read the chapter on the Theory of 26. Nor do I plan to, anytime soon. The gist of it is that luck controls most of the game and skill revolves around each player fighting over the 10 or so points that can actually be controlled by how you play the cards you’re dealt—I think.
Okay, okay, so I’ll read a little bit about Colvert’s 26 Theory to you. Colvert says, per hand that the non-dealer will peg on average 10.2 points. The dealer will peg 16.2 points per hand on average. Every two deals the average points add up to 26.4. Colvert goes on to say:
“The cribbage law of averages dictates that the dealer will win the game by scoring his crib hand on the 9th deal. The non-dealer will be about five (5.2) points short after counting first on the ninth hand. And this crucial five points will, on the average, caused the non-dealer to lose 56 games of 100 (skill levels being equal, of course). These averages are the foundation of the “Twenty Six Theory.”
I could probably sound real smart here by saying that nobody plays a purely statistical average game. But I’m not going to cop out. I’m just not smart enough to use the 26 Theory. More than anything, Sena and I play cribbage just for fun. I think that’s what most of us do.
On the other hand, Rollie Heath has been inducted into the ACC Hall of Fame. Maybe we should ask Rollie whether you can have 29 scores in both your hand and your crib.
We have a couple of new cribbage board games shipping early. They might arrive as early as tomorrow. These aren’t just cribbage boards.
One of them is Kings Cribbage. It’s kind of a cross between Scrabble and cribbage. Great, another game Sena can win nearly every time. Tiles correspond to cards. There are only two suits, light and dark brown. You have to try to make the highest scoring cribbage hand. You can score in multiple rows and columns at the same time. They have to be standard cribbage scores. I couldn’t find a YouTube instructional video per se, but the rules are on the web.
I did find a couple of reviews that were interesting and informative, though. It sounds like gameplay can make for complicated strategy building. And like the Tile Lock Scrabble game, the board has rails to keep the tiles in place. You can also spin the board around. The 6 and the 9 tiles are interchangeable. The
The other game is CrossCribb. The rules are also the web. The idea is to peg 31 points on your scorecard before your opponent cab do so. Two players to four players build hands perpendicular to each other.
They sound like fun variations on cribbage. We can’t wait to play!
We finally got a sunny break yesterday and headed out to the Terry Trueblood Trail for a walk. It was good to stretch our legs. The spring birds are back. The Tree Swallow nest boxes are installed, although one of them was upside down. I’m not sure how that happens. A sparrow chased one of the swallows off, probably staking a claim on one of the nest boxes. Lucky break for the sparrow. Lucky for all that the nest boxes were available; unlucky if some are upside down, though.
The great weather was a lucky break, actually. Rain is in the forecast for the next couple of days. Talk about luck. We both got lucky playing cribbage the other day. Sena got a double run of 2 through 5 counting the cut card—and so did I. We both got 12 points. I had the crib, and got 12 more. Neither of us can recall what we threw to my crib.
Luck is important in cribbage. An expert player, Frank Lake, once said that cribbage is 85% luck and 15% skill. Others back him up.
Today Sena and I held the Cribbage 29 board rematch and it was unparalleled in the history of the universe! We shot a video of it and posted it on YouTube. It’s about 28 minutes long and we had a blast playing the game.
The last time we played on the 29 board was a couple of years ago. We posted it to YouTube and it has over 700 views so far—and it’s still getting views. I won the first game. You’ll have to watch the video to find out who won today.
The odds of getting a 29-score hand in cribbage is 1 in 216,580. Needless to say, neither of us got one. It’s pretty much a once in a lifetime thing. When it happens, it usually gets reported to local newspapers.
We played a game on our new Wisconsin cribbage board. We made some miscounts I’m sure, but it was because we had so much fun talking. We lived in Madison for a short time many years ago and managed to see quite a few sights in the south-central region of the state. And even after we moved back to Iowa, we made return trips to visit Wisconsin because there’s a lot to do there.
Madison itself is the capital of Wisconsin. One of my first impressions is that a number of fascinating people live there. I remember we were walking west on State Street, and I saw a guy walking in the middle of the street wearing a live rattlesnake coiled on his head. Sena missed that for some reason. He was moving carefully and slowly, probably to avoid rattling his headgear.
I don’t think the sculpture of Harry Dumpty is still standing in Madison, but for several years it was a distinctive bronze sculpture in front of the Madison Municipal Building just south of the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and East Doty Street. I can’t see it on Google Maps nowadays.
I never knew the sculpture was Harry Dumpty. It sat above a large concrete wall with an inscription on it which I just assumed was connected to the sculpture and probably still sits there although we couldn’t find it in 2012 when we returned for a visit:
“David James Schaefer, 1955-2004 was a phenomenal phenomenon. Though plagued by the progressive debilities of cerebral palsy, “Schaefer” was an uncomplaining and generous friend to many. Disability Rights Specialist for the City of Madison in three different settings, his death of a heart attack in September 2004 made a hole in our community which cannot ever be filled. Erected by the Friends of Schaefer at private expense.”
It turns out Harry Dumpty has no connection to David James Schaefer. In fact, Harry is one of several similar sculptures created by artist Brent George, who made him in 1997, saying he’s Humpty’s brother. If you look closely at the book sitting open next to Harry, it’s entitled “Harry Dumpty.” Brent George’s name is below it. Brent’s phone number is on the front of the wall. Evidently somebody called him and asked about the sculpture. Brent says there’s no connection between the sculpture and the inscription.
On the subject of art, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (on State Street) is a place to see. Although the art works are free to view on the web, they’re copyrighted and you can’t reproduce them without permission of the artists. However, at the time we were there in 2012 we saw Typewriter Eraser by Claes Oldenburg. I think it’s OK to share our picture of the giant one we saw in Washington, D.C. In 2015.
Typewriter Eraser in Washington, D.C.
One of the more relaxing times we had was having pizza for lunch at Paisan’s in Madison. We were outside and had that breathtaking view of Lake Monona, the breeze was coming off the water, cooling and refreshing—like the Moose Drool brown ale, which is not a Wisconsin brew; it’s made in Montana.
Wisconsin is known for its beer, among many other virtues. New Glarus Brewing Company is famous. I tried a few of the brews. One of them was Stone Soup. It had oil of clove in it and my lips got numb.
We took a dinner train ride at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom. It was great food and great company.
One of the more interesting stories about Monroe, Wisconsin is The Great Limburger Cheese War, which I mangled during the heat of the game. I first heard about it on a TV show; it seemed to me it was on Mysteries at the Museum, but when I googled it, I couldn’t find it.
We had a great time in Wisconsin. Maybe someday we’ll go back for a visit.
We got the Wisconsin state map cribbage board yesterday and there’s a little story behind it, right off the bat. It was delivered by the United States Postal Service (USPS) and I remember the slap as it hit our porch from the USPS worker just tossing the package.
When we opened the package, it turned out to be not the board we ordered. It was not as thick as the Iowa cribbage board and it didn’t have a storage space on the back for pegs. The packing material for the Wisconsin board was not as interesting as that used for the Iowa board, which was packed using a local newspaper with a sermon on one of the pages, “In times like these we turn with trust to God.”
In contrast, the Wisconsin board was shipped from the same place in Minnesota, but this time in a plain white USPS envelope, conventionally secured with eBay tape, bubble wrap, and a plain brown shopping bag. No sermons.
Wisconsin cribbage board packing
Sena arranged to return it for a refund (which was the only choice other than having the exact same item reshipped from the seller), carefully rewrapped it and drove out to a couple of the UPS stores—both of which happened to be closed yesterday. She was late by just a couple of minutes.
This morning we noticed that the seller sent an email apologizing about shipping us the wrong board and offered us the choice of shipping it back for the full refund or keeping it at 70% off the price. We took the latter.
We’re now brushing up on our memories of Wisconsin, chuckling at our snapshots, and considering using the deck of cards we got at Lost Canyon gift shop at Wisconsin Dells, where we took the horse-drawn wagon tour 13 years ago.
Sena and I got the Iowa map cribbage board and pegged around the state. It was a great way for us to relearn what’s great about Iowa. There is a ton of fun things to do in Iowa.
The 2022 RAGBRAI route, scheduled for July 23-30 will run from Sargeant Bluff to Lansing. It’s the oldest and largest recreational touring bicycle ride in the world, according to the RAGBRAI website. RAGBRAI stands for Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. It’s the largest, longest, and oldest recreational bicycle touring event in the world.
It was started by Des Moines Register reporters John Karras and Donald Kaul. The 7-day trip goes from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River with many stops along the way.
One of them is Mason City, where John Dillinger robbed the First National Bank in the 1930s.
Lake Okoboji in northwestern Iowa is well known for a lot of reasons. It’s a great place to boat and fish, but if you’re an X-Files fan, you’ll recognize that it was the setting for the episode “Conduit,” in which a young woman was kidnapped by aliens although Fox Mulder was unable to prove it happened. The show misspelled the place as “Okobogee,” a mistake that was easy for any Iowan to detect. It was actually shot in British Columbia.
Of course, Iowa City is the home of the Hawkeyes, The University of Iowa, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. The African American Museum is in Cedar Rapids.
Clear Lake, as some of you might recall, is where the Surf Ballroom is. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, after performing there were killed when their plane crashed shortly after taking off from the nearby Mason City Municipal Airport in 1959.
Riverside is the site of the Star Trek Museum and the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk in 2233. There’s an annual Trek Fest festival. William Shatner played a hoax on Riverside in 2004 when he visited with a film crew, claiming that they were going to make a science fiction movie there.
Dubuque is the oldest city in Iowa. One of the places to see is the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium.
Although it’s not on the cribbage board Iowa map, about a half hour west of Dubuque is Dyersville, where the movie Field of Dreams was shot. The New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox played there in 2021.
The Pella Tulip Time Festival runs in early May.
You can see Albert, the largest bull in the world, in Audubon. The solid concrete sculpture weighs 45 tons. That’s a lot of bull (obligatory rim shot here).
The Iowa State Fair is in Des Moines, the capital of Iowa. Iowa State University is in Ames. I’m part Cyclone and part Hawkeye because I got my bachelor’s degree at ISU and my medical degree at UI.
Although Nashua is not on the Iowa cribbage board, it’s in our hearts. We were reminded of our wedding at The Little Brown Church there 44 years ago. Come to Iowa and make memories of your own.
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