Category: cribbage

First Cribbage Solitaire Win Today!

I got lucky and won my first game of cribbage solitaire today! I got to 121 in six deals. I probably should have videotaped the game, but since you never know if you’re going to win, you’d probably waste a lot of time filming. Sena watched me do it and I wonder when she’s going to give it a try. What you see in the picture are the 4 crib cards spaced out, the deck with starter card, the hand cards face up in a pile on the right, and the 5 other deals in piles face down on the left.

According to DeLynn Colvert in his book “Play Winning Cribbage” 5th Edition, published in 2015 in the appendix, “This game is simple, fast, and difficult to win…but it can be done.” You have to average 20 points per deal to win the 121-point game. See my YouTube video below for a quick demo.

Rules summarized:

Cribbage solitaire has six hands and six cribs and you peg your six hands.

Start by dealing two cards down to form part of your hand, then one down to form part of the crib. Deal two more to your hand, one more to the crib, and finally two more to your hand (which now has six cards and the crib has two.

Discard two of the six cards to form a four-card crib. Then flip the top card of the deck for the starter card.

Then peg your hand for maximum count, which would not always be the way you’d peg in a game with an opponent. Colbert’s example paraphrased: if you hold 5-10-10-jack. Play the 5 first, then a 10 for “15-2,” then the other 10 for “25, a pair for two and a go.” The remaining jack also scores a “go” for one point. Your peg is six points total.

After scoring the peg, count your hand, then your crib.

Then start the second deal by using the first-hand starter card, which becomes one of the first six cards for your hand. Again, deal the crib two cards. Repeat this process until you complete the game with the sixth deal (the deck will have four cards after six deals). (Colvert, 2015).

Reference

Colvert, D. (2015). Play Winning Cribbage 5th ed. Missoula, Montana: Starr Studios.

Cribbage Solitaire Inventor Lost in the Mists of Time?

I just played 3 games of cribbage solitaire that I posted about in the last couple of days. I got to 4th street in 2 of them and got to 115 in one. I think getting to 121 is at least possible. You have 6 deals to get there and you need over 20 points per deal to make it. Each game takes me about 10 minutes.

I haven’t seen any rules for this cribbage solitaire variation about looking at your cards or not as you deal them. I deal the hand cards face down as well as the first two crib cards face down. I look at the six cards in my hand from which I select the other two cards to throw to the crib. I only look at all four crib cards when I’m ready to count the crib points. I don’t know if anybody else does it differently. See my YouTube video demo for how I interpret the game play.

The only rules I’ve seen for this cribbage solitaire version are in DeLynn Colvert’s book (“Play Winning Cribbage, 5th edition, published in 2015) or were cited by someone on the boardgamegeekdotcom thread which dates to 2008 and they are virtually identical. Neither source identifies the inventor of the rules. I wonder if they would be in the original edition of Colvert’s book, which was first published in 1980. You can find a 1993 edition on eBay going for $150. There’s a 1985 edition advertised for $113. I can’t find anything on the Internet Archive about it.

It’s probably lost in the mists of time.

Learning How to Play Cribbage Solitaire

I thought I would try to learn how to play cribbage solitaire as described by DeLynn Colvert in his book Play Winning Cribbage, 5th edition published in June 2015.

There are several versions of the variation of the game often called cribbage solitaire, but I think this one teaches the most about the important phases of the game of cribbage.

I don’t know who originally created this variation of cribbage solitaire, but I found the same description on the website boardgamegeekdotcom.

If anyone else knows more about this variation, please let me know!

Addendum: The best I could do today was 111.

Cribbage Solitaire According to DeLynn Colvert or Whoever

I was leafing through Delynn Colvert’s book “Play Winning Cribbage” and found a section on how to play cribbage solitaire. I’ve never considered it, but I tried it tonight just for laughs. It’s easier to understand than his 26 Theory, which I never got. I looked for the rules as Colvert described them and was lucky to find them in the forum on the boardgamegeek website.

Just read Jesse Hickle’s description. If you look at stuff on the web about cribbage solitaire too long, you’ll find dozens of variations. I’d stick with Colvert’s version (or Hickle’s version, whatever). I don’t know where the rules originated.

Colvert says it’s not impossible to beat—but I didn’t win tonight after a few tries. It’s good practice.

Iowa State Fair Cribbage Tournament and More!

I just have a few remarks about the Iowa State Fair Cribbage Tournament which took place today. I don’t have the results and it could be a week before anything is announced about the winner. Here are the rules:

Note the $1 entry fee and you have to bring your own cribbage board, cards, and pen. In the past there have been as many as 200 entrants (that was in 2015). We’ve never entered.

I also wanted to let you know that Sena has started a new cribbage tradition. Whenever she wants to play cribbage, she just puts the deck of cards in our automatic shuffler and makes a racket.

Cribbage Lingo in The Crib Song by Brett Kissel

I modified the YouTube cribbage video “One for his nob short” to be about the same length as Canadian country singer Brett Kissel’s song about cribbage “The Crib Song.” I didn’t change any of the subtitles on the video because they fit the game play in the video.

There is no audio in the short version because you’ll need to play the YouTube video of the song “The Crib Song” along with our cribbage game video (see below). We think they still go together.

I found a Facebook entry on the web that must below to Brett, because it shows images of the computer cribbage game Cribbage Classic (which I’ve reviewed in the past, see my YouTube channel) and he says. “I’m a legend. I will play anyone at crib. Except if you’re over 70 years old. I won’t be able to beat you if you’re 70+.” I wonder why. I don’t have a Facebook account so I can’t ask him about the lyrics of The Crib Song.

Anyway, I found the lyrics for the song. OK, it clips along but I can’t verify some of the cribbage lingo in it. Maybe they’re common parlance for cribbage players in Canada. If any of you know what the following mean let me know:

Romney’s-no idea but it’s evidently something Ebs keeps getting

Loins-if all you get is “loins,” what are those? Sounds like if that’s all you get you might be lucky or good or maybe neither.

Gino-from context it sounds like something you win (“I just won a Gino”)

There’s another that I couldn’t figure out:

Piled-this is connected to “Deuce Neon” in some way (Deuce neon got him piled”); maybe a player?

There are a few I recognized. The kitty is another name for the crib (the two extra cards from the non-dealer and the dealer which are for the dealer). A flush is a hand of cards all the same suit, which can include the cut card. You can’t get a flush in the crib unless the cut card is also of the same suit.

The lyric “I’m looking for that 29” is about that very rare hand of 29 points: the nob jack (jack of the same suit as the cut card), and 3 fives in your hand, the cut card being the other 5. And a score of 19 is slang for zero points because 19 is not a possible score in cribbage.

I think the lines below are about forming sequences during pegging:

“Don’t give away your hand

I’ll rope you right into a run

Peg 8 or 9 or 10

Looking at your face”

You can find lists of cribbage lingo, but admittedly they’ll probably be mostly American usage. The American Cribbage Congress (ACC) list is pretty good and so is the Cribbage King list.

Whoops, The “One for his nob” Cribbage Song Vanished!

OK, sorry, I just noticed that my cribbage post “The Best Cribbage Song You Never Heard Of” has lost the video for the cribbage song “One for his nob” by British artist, Richard Thompson. I don’t know where it went (maybe abducted by extraterrestrials), but I think I found another one. It’s called “The Crib Song” and it’s by somebody named Brett Kissel. All I know about him is that he’s a Canadian country singer.

There’s only a couple of hitches relating to the short and speedy cribbage video Sena and I made in March: one is that it was timed to go with “One for his nob.” Brett Kissel’s number is longer than “One for his nob”—and the other is that I’m not a huge fan of country music. One the other hand, it does have a ton of cribbage terms in it, many of which I’ve never heard of.

So, I would have to modify our cribbage game video to fit the length of the song. I think I could manage but it would take a little time and effort. In the meantime, you can hear it here.

Two to Tango Cribbage Mistake Update!

I already have an update to the cribbage kerfuffle I posted about yesterday! The American Cribbage Congress (ACC) representative clarified what to do if the non-dealer and dealer by mistake switched roles during the cut of the deck and picking the starter card. According to Dan:

“This mishap of the cutting of the starter card is addressed in the rulebook under Rule 6.1 Even though it does not specifically address the wrong person cutting the starter card, it alludes to a similar situation and says, the starter card must be returned to the pack… the dealer reshuffles the pack, and the pone cuts the starter card.  No penalty is assessed.  Therefore, you did the exact right thing by keeping your hands and the crib and shuffling the remaining deck and then correctly cutting.  The jack that was originally cut is not in play at all.

Hope this helps.”

Dan got back to us the same day we sent the question, which was a fantastically quick response in my book!

The “It Takes Two to Tango” Mistake in Cribbage

Yesterday while playing cribbage, Sena and I accidentally switched non-dealer and dealer roles during the cut and pick the starter card phase of the game. I was dealer and by mistake cut the deck. Sena was non-dealer and by mistake picked the starter card—which happened to be a jack.

At that point we both realized this was wrong. I was the dealer and should have got the two for his heels, but I was also guilty of cutting the deck which the non-dealer is supposed to do. Sena, for whatever reason, picked the starter card, compounding the mistake of switching roles. This actually would have resulted in her getting 16 points!

At first, she suggested she get the two for his heels points and proceed. I thought this would compound the mistake further and thought we should reshuffle and redeal—which she did after a fairly long discussion. We kept our original hands and cribs and just repeated the cut and picked a new starter card the way it was supposed to be done—nondealer (Sena) cut and dealer (me) picked the starter card. In all fairness, we’ve both done this in the past but caught the mistakes before it got as far as it did yesterday.

However, we then looked for any rule which would cover what we should have done. I couldn’t find one either on the American Cribbage Congress website rulebook page or anywhere else. The link takes you to the ACC 2025 version of the tournament cribbage rules; which gives the cut card rules starting on page 28 of the flipbook. It covers the mistakes of the dealer turning up the starter card before both players discard to the crib, nondealer looking at the bottom card of the upper pack when making the cut, and the dealer placing the cut card in his hand and not showing it to the nondealer. It doesn’t cover the wild mistake of both dealer and nondealer accidentally switching roles either by somehow switching to a parallel universe or by extraterrestrial intervention.

We also tried to ask Artificial Intelligence (AI): What happens in cribbage if the dealer cuts the cards by mistake and the non-dealer turns up the starter card by mistake?

AI answer: “In cribbage, if the dealer cuts the deck by mistake and the non-dealer mistakenly turns up the starter card, the dealer loses the deal and the crib. The non-dealer then becomes the new dealer, and the cards are dealt again.”

I couldn’t find anything on the web which supported the AI answer or its detailed explanation. Long story short, I think this might be an example of an AI confabulation (some would call this a hallucination).

However, when I searched again asking the same question, AI gave a different answer:

“In a friendly cribbage game, if the dealer cuts the deck and the non-dealer turns up the starter card by mistake, the cards should be reshuffled and re-dealt. There is no penalty for this mistake as it is considered a misdeal.”

The explanations for the AI answer make sense but tend to sound like rephrasing of the initial answer and there are links which don’t seem connected to the answer. And if I search again, I get a slightly different answer and the explanations are not really connected to the original question.

But we reshuffled and redealt. I sent a question about this to the relevant ACC representative who takes general questions about cribbage. If I get an answer, I’ll pass it along.