Tag: cribbage

Our House Rules for Crib Wars

Based on what I found out from Artificial Intelligence (AI) yesterday, I thought I’d share our house rules for Crib Wars. The only reason I’m including information from AI is because I couldn’t find specifics on how to manage pegging for the Blue Penalty Box anywhere else.

If you already know how to play basic cribbage, you can ignore most of what’s on the rules sheet (available on the web) because there’s only a short section for the Crib Wars rules. It describes the colored areas and what the players are supposed to do with them.

There’s no Muggers Alley on the Ebonwood board and we never play muggins. Below are my updated descriptions of the colored zones, which we discuss and demonstrate during the video.

Red Skips: There are 3 of these. The rule says if you land on the first red box you should slide to the next red box which gets you 20 holes further along the board. The red box just means the set of 3 holes highlighted with a red color. You get from the first one to the next one by just moving the peg 20 holes. You’ll land in the 2nd set of holes marked in red. This is a boon in the first Red Skip area. However, if you pay attention to the directional arrows in the path guiding you, it looks like they accelerate you toward two of the Blue Time Traps.

Blue Time Traps: There are 4 of these and there will be three blue lines, meaning the blue color covers all three holes and all three peg tracks (3 holes along the track and 3 holes across the track). If you land in a set of three holes highlighted in blue, you end up moving to a blue area of holes that actually set you behind several holes. You have to play your way out of them. Players note that you can end up in repetitious cycling back to the traps largely because of how often you can get one or two points at a time while scoring. In fact, some say that if their opponent gets close to a Blue Time Trap they may purposely lead with a five card (something you would rarely if ever do in a standard cribbage game). That could trap the opponent into playing a ten card or a 5 card, which might risk them moving only a couple of holes right back into the Blue Time Trap. The same thing could happen with falling into the Blue Penalty Boxes.

Blue Penalty Boxes: There are three of them. You fall into one of these by moving your peg into one of the single blue hole lines, meaning one blue track across the three peg tracks. This is a disaster because you immediately have to move back 20 holes and fold your hand and your crib while your opponent moves forward 20 holes and counts their hand and crib (if they have the crib). Asking AI is the only way I could find out how to learn how to peg moving back and forward 20 holes. The player who lands in the penalty box moves their front peg back 20 holes starting from the penalty box. You don’t move the rear peg. If your front peg lands behind the rear peg, it becomes the new rear peg. The player who doesn’t land in the penalty box moves their front peg forward 20 holes. The player who lands in the penalty box immediately folds their hand and crib.

Green Advances: There are two of them. If you land in a green hole, you take short cut path. The long one saves you from moving toward the Blue Time Trap in the left lower quadrant. You don’t avoid the potential other trap above. If you take the normal track instead you end up moving toward the lower left quadrant Blue Time Trap—but you have a chance at getting into the short Green Advance track before you get there which loops back away from it and you end up going in the direction of the upper Blue Time Trap.

You think you’re in the clear after that? You’re not because there is a sadistically placed Blue Penalty Box in the next to the last hole before the Finish Line!

The Big Crib War Hybrid with 10 Card Cribbage!

Well, we did manage to get through a hybrid of 10-card Cribbage and Crib Wars although I had a kerfuffle with pegging which led to extra points I shouldn’t have got. I probably made other mistakes (just let me know).

However, it probably didn’t make that much difference. As luck would have it (as it tends to do in cribbage and in life) I won mainly because Sena ended up going through the final Blue Time Trap twice!

 Here’s a recap of the rules for 10-card Cribbage: This one is fun. Deal 10 cards each and two to the dealer’s crib. Divide your remaining 8 cards into 4 separate hands. Use one for pegging and both for the show (means scoring your hands). Play to 121 (unless you’re playing Crib Wars and then you’re in for a marathon). You get big scores but they’re manageable.

We completed the game in an hour, very similar to our time in regular 6 card cribbage on the big Ebonwood Crib Wars board. I started to get a little punchy mid to late phase in the game because of the several hands you get in 10-card cribbage. It’s a lot to count.

High scores over the long haul probably don’t affect what fairways and sand traps you fall into.

If you already know how to play basic cribbage, you can ignore most of what’s on the rules sheet (available on the web) because there’s only a short section for the Crib Wars rules. It describes the colored areas and what the players are supposed to do with them.

There’s no Muggers Alley on the Ebonwood board and we never play muggins. Below are my updated descriptions of the colored zones, which we discuss and demonstrate during the video.

Red Skips: There are 3 of these. The rule says if you land on the first red box you should slide to the next red box which gets you 20 holes further along the board. The red box just means the set of 3 holes highlighted with a red color. You get from the first one to the next one by just moving the peg 20 holes. You’ll land in the 2nd set of holes marked in red. This is a boon in the first Red Skip area. However, if you pay attention to the directional arrows in the path guiding you, it looks like they accelerate you toward two of the Blue Time Traps.

Blue Time Traps: There are 4 of these and there will be three blue lines, meaning the blue color covers all three holes and all three peg tracks (3 holes along the track and 3 holes across the track). If you land in a set of three holes highlighted in blue, you end up moving to a blue area of holes that actually set you behind several holes. You have to play your way out of them. Players note that you can end up in repetitious cycling back to the traps largely because of how often you can get one or two points at a time while scoring. In fact, some say that if their opponent gets close to a Blue Time Trap they may purposely lead with a five card (something you would rarely if ever do in a standard cribbage game). That could trap the opponent into playing a ten card or a 5 card, which might risk them moving only a couple of holes right back into the Blue Time Trap. The same thing could happen with falling into the Blue Penalty Boxes.

Blue Penalty Boxes: There are three of them. You fall into one of these by moving your peg into one of the single blue hole lines, meaning one blue track across the three peg tracks. This is a disaster because you immediately have to move back 20 holes and fold your hand and your crib while your opponent moves forward 20 holes and counts their hand and crib (if they have the crib). Asking AI is the only way I could find out how to learn how to peg moving back and forward 20 holes. The player who lands in the penalty box moves their front peg back 20 holes starting from the penalty box. You don’t move the rear peg. If your front peg lands behind the rear peg, it becomes the new rear peg. The player who doesn’t land in the penalty box moves their front peg forward 20 holes. The player who lands in the penalty box immediately folds their hand and crib.

Green Advances: There are two of them. If you land in a green hole, you take short cut path. The long one saves you from moving toward the Blue Time Trap in the left lower quadrant. You don’t avoid the potential other trap above. If you take the normal track instead you end up moving toward the lower left quadrant Blue Time Trap—but you have a chance at getting into the short Green Advance track before you get there which loops back away from it and you end up going in the direction of the upper Blue Time Trap.

You think you’re in the clear after that? You’re not because there is a sadistically placed Blue Penalty Box in the next to the last hole before the Finish Line!

Gearing up for 10-Card Cribbage Mashup with Big Board Crib Wars

We spent over 2 hours playing the hybrid 10-card cribbage and Crib Wars on our new Crib Wars board. Sena won!  I’m still a little punchy from the effort. Based on the results, we don’t think the higher scores we get will propel us through the game any faster.

Part of the reason is we spend any time we save from high scores shuffling cards, dealing them, and getting used to where the extra hands go but forgetting to count them, and needing to replenish our energy with hot chocolate.

This is a card from Wicked Cribbage

I got caught in two of the Blue Time Traps for a total of 6 trips. She got caught in a Penalty Box and two Blue Time Traps but managed to hit the Green Advance zone and I coughed in the dust she kicked up as she sped away to the finish line.

This is not over.

Big Board Crib Wars Video!

Date: December 12, 2025

We finally made a video of us playing Crib Wars on our new Ebonwood board! The video is almost an hour long, yet as near as I can tell from a web search, it’s the shortest YouTube video of a Crib Wars game. Except for a couple of bloopers by me, it went pretty well overall as an example of playing the game. We had a chance to demonstrate and explain the different zones in the game. There are at least 2 mistakes I made in the game (which I pointed out); one of them is stealing the deal on one round (which I forgot to mention). There are likely others; just let me know! A recap of the rules as we understand them from what’s available on the web can be found below:

Ebonwood is a company located in Appleton Wisconsin and they make a variety of wood objects including cribbage boards including a Cribbage Wars game. It’s rectangular and similar to what we got. However, it lacks directional arrows on the track in the lower left quadrant. There is no Muggins Alley. The rules for Cribbage Wars are on the Ebonwood web site. I don’t know if the board ships with rules. Ebonwood charges $210 for it.

If you already know how to play basic cribbage, you can ignore most of what’s on the rules sheet (available on the web) because there’s only a short section for the Crib Wars rules. It describes the colored areas and what the players are supposed to do with them.

There’s no Muggers Alley on the Ebonwood board and we never play muggins. Below are my updated descriptions of the colored zones, which we discuss and demonstrate during the video.

Red Skips: There are 3 of these. The rule says if you land on the first red box you should slide to the next red box which gets you 20 holes further along the board. The red box just means the set of 3 holes highlighted with a red color. You get from the first one to the next one by just moving the peg 20 holes. You’ll land in the 2nd set of holes marked in red. This is a boon in the first Red Skip area. However, if you pay attention to the directional arrows in the path guiding you, it looks like they accelerate you toward two of the Blue Time Traps.

Blue Time Traps: There are 4 of these and there will be three blue lines, meaning the blue color covers all three holes and all three peg tracks (3 holes along the track and 3 holes across the track). If you land in a set of three holes highlighted in blue, you end up moving to a blue area of holes that actually set you behind several holes. You have to play your way out of them. Players note that you can end up in repetitious cycling back to the traps largely because of how often you can get one or two points at a time while scoring. In fact, some say that if their opponent gets close to a Blue Time Trap they may purposely lead with a five card (something you would rarely if ever do in a standard cribbage game). That could trap the opponent into playing a ten card or a 5 card, which might risk them moving only a couple of holes right back into the Blue Time Trap. The same thing could happen with falling into the Blue Penalty Boxes.

Blue Penalty Boxes: There are three of them. You fall into one of these by moving your peg into one of the single blue hole lines, meaning one blue track across the three peg tracks. This is a disaster because you immediately have to move back 20 holes and fold your hand and your crib while your opponent moves forward 20 holes and counts their hand and crib (if they have the crib). Asking AI is the only way I could find out how to learn how to peg moving back and forward 20 holes. The player who lands in the penalty box moves their front peg back 20 holes starting from the penalty box. You don’t move the rear peg. If your front peg lands behind the rear peg, it becomes the new rear peg. The player who doesn’t land in the penalty box moves their front peg forward 20 holes. The player who lands in the penalty box immediately folds their hand and crib.

Green Advances: There are two of them. If you land in a green hole, you take short cut path. The long one saves you from moving toward the Blue Time Trap in the left lower quadrant. You don’t avoid the potential other trap above. If you take the normal track instead you end up moving toward the lower left quadrant Blue Time Trap—but you have a chance at getting into the short Green Advance track before you get there which loops back away from it and you end up going in the direction of the upper Blue Time Trap.

You think you’re in the clear after that? You’re not because there is a sadistically placed Blue Penalty Box in the next to the last hole before the Finish Line!

New Ebonwood Cribbage Wars Board Baptism!

Well, we got the new Ebonwood Cribbage Wars board last night. It was delivered shortly after 8:00 p.m. We took it for a test spin this morning and our inaugural game went for well over 2 hours. By some miracle and partly because of the sadistically placed final Blue Penalty Box just outside the winning hole—I won! Sena had a comfortable lead most of the game until then. We both tripped over a couple of Blue Time Traps. Sena lucked up on the little Green Advance zone and I lucked up on landing in the first Red Skip zone.

We both were a little confused by the board because it lacked some key directional arrows in the lower left quadrant which we got used to on the little board. In fact, it’s a good thing we learned how to play by practicing on the little board. The Ebonwood board is 16 inches square and, while it was easier to peg because the holes were better spaced and bigger, the single blue streak across the exit from the Blue Time Traps also was misleading because it looks so much like the single line Blue Penalty Box.

Photos of the little board and the Ebonwood board side by side shows the differences between the two. The little one seems crowded with lettering which can be hard to read and the peg holes are tiny but the directional arrows are helpful. There’s a lot more real estate on the Ebonwood board, but it could have done with a couple more directional arrows to clarify the pegging paths. The special zones are made of different colored resin inlays.

compare big and little cribbage wars boards
Ebonwood Cribbage Wars Board and stuff included
Ebonwood Cribbage Wars Board back side
Jim wins!

And of course, there seems to be no way to shorten the time it takes to play a Cribbage Wars game. On the other hand, we tend to get absorbed by it and often hardly notice that we spend more than 2 hours playing a game. We did get through a game in a little over an hour a couple days ago, but that’s the exception to the rule.

An interesting side note was the answer to Sena’s question by one of the makers about the origin of the name Ebonwood:.

Sorry for the late reply on this. We used to be a strictly table top gaming accessories company (back when myself and the other cofounder started in my garage). Then we realized that if we wanted to sell cribbage boards, and other non ttrpg items our name “Deathroll Gaming” might not give the best impression. So we sat down and brainstormed up Ebonwood. Something a lot more elegant than a strictly TTRPG sounding name; but it also allowed us to keep with the TTRPG stuff as that name fit both worlds.

I think TTRPG stands for Table Top Role-Playing Game. The board ships with a deck of cards and pegs. It doesn’t come with a printed set of rules but they’re all over the internet anyway. It’ll set you back $210.

The length of the game is the main reason why we haven’t yet filmed one. Luck plays such a big part in every game that it’s almost impossible to predict how long one will last. We’ll film one eventually, but hopefully I can edit so that it doesn’t put people to sleep. Time traps are the main issue. During a game, I usually start remembering the chorus of one of the songs in the Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again.”

Let’s do the time trap again.

Jim Finally Wins a Cribbage Game!

The Wicked Cribbage Lugger card gave us the idea of trying a hybrid game of 10-card cribbage and Crib Wars today. I can’t contain myself; I finally won!

The rules for 10-card cribbage are on the Lugger card from the Wicked Cribbage game although we’ve played it before. We finished the game in 1 hour and 15 minutes. This is despite the confusion from having 3 piles of cards in front of you when you’re the dealer (your regular 4-card hand, the other 4-card hand, and your crib).

It actually plays pretty well, and the scores are easier to count than the 9-card variant because there are only 4 cards to count at a time. I managed to skip all the Red Skip Zones, all the Blue Time Traps, and all the Blue Penalty Zones, but also missed out on the Green Advance Zones. Sena cycled through one of the Blue Time Traps three times.

Sena relies on strategy in card play for Crib Wars and it doesn’t always work. I think luck is the biggest factor, but that doesn’t mean I relax. Sorting through my cards to pick out the best two 4-card hands was tough. We both agree that picking out the two cards to throw to the dealer’s crib was the easy part. Counting holes on the board was a chore because they’re very small. The number of holes in a group can vary a lot. Standard cribbage board holes are always 5 in a group.

I’m still leery of trying to film us playing a game of Crib Wars. The time to play is still way too long for that, mostly because of all the water hazards and sand traps. By the way, why do I not see comparisons of Crib Wars to golf (which I don’t play)?

Some people say that Crib Wars reminds them of Chutes and Ladders. I had to look this up on the web (despite having played this as a kid), but in Chutes and Ladders, chutes slow you down and ladders speed you up. So, it isn’t just the board layout alone of Crib Wars that reminds people of Chutes and Ladders.

Sena and I talked about what cribbage game variant we like best so far as a hybrid with Crib Wars. She kind of likes 9-card but settled on 7-card. I tend to agree with her because, while I think 6-card cribbage might tend to make the game seem too slow after a while, the 7-card might better rather than trying to manage too many cards, even though you can get some pretty high scores in 7-card.

Overall, we both like Crib Wars. It’s fun and absorbing and we’ll probably keep playing. At between $25-30, the price is right.

What About Wicked Cribbage?

We’ve played Wicked Cribbage twice so far—and yes, Sena won both games, but here’s the thing: it’s fun to play. I think this is called a cribbage overlay in that you need to know how to play standard cribbage and already have the equipment for that.

Then Wicked Cribbage adds special cards with wonky and eyebrow-raising instructions that makes cribbage a weird experience.

There are two decks of cards with special instructions: one called Twinklers and you draw one card immediately each time you peg 15 or 31 and do what it says; another is called Luggers, and you draw one of those and play it later during the show when you land on a hole which is a multiple of 5 (5, 15, 20, 25, etc.).

One of the Lugger cards has you switch to, wait for it—10-card cribbage! We already know how to play that, but if you didn’t the card gives you the rules.

I wonder how 10-card cribbage would work with Crib Wars? Something tells me I don’t want to know.

You want to be careful how much you reveal what’s on any card to your opponent. If you say, “point to any face-up card,” you probably don’t want to say why right away. Sometimes, timing is everything.

One of the Twinkler cards tells you to play rock, paper, scissors to see which player draws an extra card to add a fifth card to the hand.

That reminds me of a scene from the Svengoolie TV show comedy spots, which are little breaks from the schlocky horror movies—which I often watch. This often features a group of three goofy monsters called the Sven Squad and two of them, Nostalgiaferatoo and Ignatius Malvolio Prankenstein (IMP for short) are playing rock, paper, scissors. The third one, Gwengoolie, happens to catch them on maybe the 30,000th try!

That would make for a wickedly long cribbage game.

Sena Wins Hybrid 9 Card Cribbage and Crib Wars Today!

Here we go again! Hybrid competitions are the rule around here lately and the news flash today is that Sena won the hybrid 9 card cribbage and crib wars game today, which took an hour and a half to play.

9 card cribbage & Crib Wars and Sena wins again!
Sena is modest!

Just as an aside, I used the word “hybrid” because yesterday I just found out about the hybrid Chess Boxing sport in which opponents box for 3 minutes alternating with 3 minutes of blitz chess (fast paced chess game you have to finish in 10 minutes). Figure that one out; I would think that repeated blows to the head would do something not so good for your chess playing skills, but whatever.

So, the assumption here with hybrid 9-card cribbage and crib wars is that the higher than usual cribbage hand and crib scores you get help speed you past the crib wars obstacles like the Blue Time Traps and the Blue Penalty Boxes. However, by the same token you’d probably miss out on the Green Advance zones too—but would that even matter?

Briefly, the rules of 9 card cribbage are that each player is dealt 9 cards, both toss 3 cards to the dealer’s crib, and then you sweat the scoring of both. We tried scoring by hand first, and if we got stuck, we used the scoring program I found on a Reddit thread. We didn’t do too badly and sometimes we didn’t need the scorer. We got scores as high as 38, 28, and 26. If nothing else, the 9-card cribbage variant helps your ability to hand count your scores, something I think computer cribbage apps might not be helpful for.

Anyway, I thought the 9-card game might take even longer than the 3-hour game we had yesterday with the 7-card cribbage and crib wars game. But for some reason it didn’t, even with the running back and forth to run the scoring program. I suspect that’s largely from practice effect although we’ve played crib wars only 3 times (played 6-card, 7-card, and now 9-card variants).

While we did speed past the crib wars board hazards, we also missed the reward zones (Green Advance) as well. It felt more like a long regular cribbage game. And it could turn out the opposite way although you’d probably get out of the hazard zones more quickly. But I think that would tend to make crib wars less fun, because it’s a hybrid game. It’s both a board game and a cribbage game. Some people classify cribbage itself as a board game, but that’s a misnomer because the board is just for keeping score.

You have to use a different strategy in crib wars than you’d use in a straight-up cribbage game. Maybe that’s part of the reason why I’ve lost all 3 crib wars games so far. Nah, Sena is just good.

Mashup of 7 Card Cribbage and Cribbage Wars with 46 Point Hand for Sena!

I just had to get this post out this morning after a 3-hour game of Crib Wars playing 7-card cribbage because Sena won with the highest hand point total of 46! Some say this is analogous to getting a 29 hand in 6-card cribbage. See below for details on the rules, about which opinions differ due to the high point totals players can get.

While the game took 3 hours to finish, it didn’t feel that long because we got pretty absorbed in it.

Recall we just recently learned the 7-card cribbage variant rules and I planned to try it during a Crib Wars game, which we are also just learning. I wondered if it would shorten the game, which it obviously didn’t. We travel farther along the board, but we also take longer to count the often-complicated scores—like 46. There are 8 three-card runs for 24 points; 3 pairs for 6 points; and 8 fifteens for 2 for 16 points.

We didn’t film this game because it took 3 hours to finish. We started at 8:00 a.m. and finished at 11:00 a.m. when Sena got the 46-point hand count. This has been reported to be the highest count in 7-card cribbage according to the web site Masters Traditional Games.

There are other ways to play this game mainly by changing how many cards are dealt to the crib. Some say you should toss 2 cards to the crib as usual, which differs from what Masters Traditional Games says, which is to toss one right after the deal and then 2 more by each player after looking at the hands dealt. This means you get a 5-card crib instead of a 4-card crib. When you end up with a 6-card hand (plus the starter) and a 5-card crib (plus the starter), scoring gets higher and takes longer to count, at least for us.

Now Sena wants to play a mashup of 9-card cribbage and Crib Wars!

Sena Wins Our First Crib Wars Game Today!

Hey, we played our first Crib Wars game today and, wouldn’t you know it, Sena won! We played six card cribbage. We ignored Muggers Alley.

I spent a fair amount of time in two of the Blue Time Traps. She got caught in a couple of cycles around the last Blue Time Trap, but scored big coming out of it. I had red pegs and she had the green. I think we spent about 2 hours playing.

Playing the low cards usually was the big reason why we got caught in the time traps. And despite Sena landing in the Blue Penalty Box at the beginning, she ended up winning! The Red Skip areas helped us both make better progress than we would have otherwise. The Green Advance zone helped Sena. I had to take the main track route and ended up in the Blue Time Trap in the left lower quadrant.

Maybe next time we’ll see if 7-card cribbage makes the game go faster.

Sena Wins Crib Wars!
Sena is modest!