cribbage – Page 2 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Crib Wars and Wicked Cribbage: Calvinball Cribbage Alley!

We just got two new cribbage games: Crib Wars and Wicked Cribbage. We’ve been looking over the rules for both. We haven’t played either yet. I’ll talk about Crib Wars here.

Crib Wars is the most challenging to tackle, mainly because the rules and the board are open to interpretation.

Crib Wars came with a 363-hole board and a set of rules. It was made in China and I have no idea what “skdp” means but it’s stamped on the board at the top. I haven’t seen this on any other similar-looking Crib Wars boards. The first 121 holes is the regular number of holes you’d play in the usual game of cribbage. There is a Muggers Alley in which you can play the Muggins Rule against your opponent. In general, if your opponent miscounts a score, you can call Muggins and take the points they missed. Does that mean we have to play Muggins Rule in that part of the board? I’m not sure how to get around this since you can’t just omit any other part of the game—can you? Judges are not involved. What if you and your opponent don’t agree? Do you play Rock Paper Scissors (you can do that in Wicked Cribbage, by the way, just not for Muggins Rule!). If I can say the quiet part out loud here, Sena and I tried to play Muggins rule once, messed it up and haven’t played since.

The American Cribbage Congress (ACC) rulebook has rules for Muggins Rule:

“Rule 10. Muggins 10.1. When in Effect a. Muggins is the only optional rule (see definition in rule 1.6). b. Officials in charge of tournaments, Grass Roots, or other forms of organized play must announce in their flyers and prior to beginning of play that muggins is in effect. c. When muggins is in effect, pegging out (reaching the game hole) is mandatory. d. When muggins is in effect, it cannot be optional between two players. It is played by all players. 10.2. Situations That Apply Except for the situations listed in rule 10.3, muggins is applied to the underpegging of the full value of any points during the play or scoring of the points in the hand or crib.

10.3. Situations That Do Not Apply a. The omission or underpegging of a penalty. b. The omission or underpegging of a muggins score. c. The dealer’s failure to peg two points for turning a Jack as a starter card. d. Points lost by a player by pegging backward.

10.4. Calling Muggins a. The caller shall state, “Muggins for X points.” During the play of the cards, the score(s) not pegged or underpegged shall be identified. Muggins may not be pegged until both players agree. If the opponent does not agree, judges shall be summoned. If the judges determine that the play was not a muggins, the opponent will be awarded the points taken as a penalty. If the true amount of underpegging is determined to be other than the amount originally claimed, the caller is entitled only to the lesser of the claimed or true amounts. In no case shall the amount of points awarded for muggins exceed the actual number of holes that could have been pegged had the scoring been correctly done. The muggins points shall be scored after the judges render a decision. b. For points missed during the play of the cards, a muggins call must be made: (1) After the player finishes underpegging the score or, if no score is pegged, after the player forfeits the score (see rule 7.2).

(2) Before the scoring player pegs a subsequent score or the pone’s hand is pegged. c. For points missed in a hand or crib: (1) The dealer must call muggins after the pone finishes pegging the score or states there is no score and before the pone’s hand is mixed with other cards or the total count of the dealer’s hand is announced. (2) The pone must call muggins after the dealer completes pegging the hand (or crib) score or states there is no score and before the pone mixes the hand (or crib) with other cards. d. The zero-count hand or crib: once a player claims no count in a hand or crib, muggins may be called immediately. After the player’s opponent says the word “muggins,” the player may not correct his or her count.”—American Cribbage Congress Cribbage Tournament Rules 2025 edition, Rule 10 Muggins Sec 10.1-10.4, pp 44-46 https://www.cribbage.org/NewSite/rules/rulebook_2025.pdf

There are other versions of the boards:

Michaud Toys makes a game called Cribbage Rumble. They called it Cribbage Wars about 7 months ago in a Facebook post. It looks different mainly because the design of the track and other markings are on an elongated board typical for most cribbage boards. That’s to make it easier for two players to see because they usually sit opposite each other with the board in between them. Despite the distortion, the design is very similar to the Crib Wars board that typically is made on a rectangular board. There is no Muggers Alley. The Crib Wars game we got was shipped with a one-page sheet with description and rules. I don’t know if Michaud Toys includes the rules. For U.S. customers, it costs $89.95 plus a 35% tariff and an extra $25 UPS brokerage fee paid before delivery.

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 Muggers 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 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 are only a couple of YouTube videos demonstrating how to play the game and I’ve not been able to sit through them because they’re both over an hour and half long. There’s a shorter separate video of an explanation of just the rules as they pertain to the colored areas. It’s mostly helpful, although I think there’s room for interpretation.

I have just a few comments and questions so far about our Crib Wars board:

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 it 20 holes. You’ll land in the 2^nd 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 (two skinny green arrows in the middle of the track) 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. This one is also open to interpretation. 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 fold your hand and your crib while your opponent plays through, so to speak. And the one who pegs into the Blue Penalty Box has to move back 20 holes while the opponent pegs forward by 20 holes. But the other thing is that the person who incurs the penalty also has to “sit in the box.” There are 3 holes next to the track and this is where you put your peg. At first, I didn’t understand the need for a box to sit in if you’re also supposed to move backwards 20 holes. After I thought about it, it made sense that while you’re sitting out the hand, you have to wait for your opponent to play their hand and crib first and move forward. After that is done is when the respective 20-point loss and gain are taken. Anyway, that’s why you sit in the box.

Green Advances: There are two of them. I think they’re tricky. If you land in a green hole, you take a short cut path. The long one ends in what looks to me like an arrow pointing at the hole you should go to next on the main track. That puts you on the track which allows you to avoid the lower left quadrant Blue Time Trap. 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. Fun, huh?

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!

Now I see why there are so few YouTube videos. Incidentally, Crib Wars came with a small yellow packet with Chinese lettering on it and the name Osmanthus printed on it. I found out that Osmanthus is a flower and it can have a variety of meanings including love, prosperity, optimism, luck, or good fortune. Sena cut the packet open because she thought it might contain flower seeds (she’s a gardener) but it just contained a square piece of white felt.

I wonder about trying to play a mashup of 7-card cribbage on the Crib Wars board. That might be the ultimate Calvinball cribbage game.

Crib Wars: The King of Calvinball Crib!

Sena asked me the other day if I had checked back on the price of a fancy Canadian cribbage board, Cribbage Rumble. I had not, so of course since that was my assignment, I looked on the Michaud Toys website and found that the high tariff price had disappeared, apparently. There were no alarming notes in red type with multiple exclamation points. And the price was $89.95.

However, as I noted yesterday, they replaced the message that U.S. orders are subject to a 35% tariff and a 25% UPS brokerage fee paid before delivery!

That is too high.

This led to a search for more information about Cribbage Rumble, which sounds a lot like Crib Wars (or Cribbage Wars, if you prefer since I think these games are all the same animal). In fact, it didn’t surprise me very much to find a Facebook post from Michaud Toys enthusiastically advertising “Cribbage Wars” 7 months ago for the low, low price of $89.95.

That’s right; they called it Cribbage Wars just 7 months ago although they call it Cribbage Rumble nowadays. Why is that? I’m glad you asked.

I began to wonder just what exactly is Crib Wars, is that different from Cribbage Wars, and why in blazes does the sight of the game board always prompt people to exclaim that it reminds them of Snakes and Ladders or Chutes and Ladders?

There’s this convoluted and confusing story about Chutes and Ladders and Snakes and Ladders. I think it’s partly because the Crib Wars board layout sort of reminds people in my age group of the layout of Chutes and Ladders. There’s this convoluted and sometimes contradictory history of the name of Snakes and Ladders being changed to Chutes and Ladders (some writers reverse them) to make it less scary for kids.

I think the story of the origin of the game has something to do with teaching morals to children in India. Some web articles say the original game from India was called Snakes and Ladders. Some people make things even worse by calling the game “Shoots and Ladders.” In modern times, the way you played the Chutes and Ladders was to spin a dial and move up a ladder or down a chute and you were supposed to try to be the first to reach the final goal. The morality theme was abandoned and—you know where that left all of us.

Milton-Bradley changed the name from Snakes and Ladders to Chutes and Ladders in 1943 because they thought snakes scared kids.

Where was I? Oh, the Crib Wars and Cribbage Wars game are probably the same, as I said earlier. When I try to search the term http://www.cribwars.com (a suggested search term), I just get an error message. When I search for “cribbage wars” I end up at a game supply store called Ebonwood and they’re located in Appleton, Wisconsin—which is a very nice place. I interviewed for a position in a private practice psychiatry clinic there years ago.

Ebonwood sells the Crib Wars game for $210. You can find the rules on their web site. The board they sell doesn’t put much in the way of markings on it, not even numbers. A reviewer on BoardGameGeek site reviews it and shows a very nice photo of the board. All of them look pretty much like that.

I think the origin of Crib Wars is fascinating. Recall that Michaud Toys in Ontario, Canada has produced and is marketing a Cribbage Rumble board (which is really just another Crib Wars board). It turns out that the two inventors of Crib Wars are from Ontario, Canada as well. One of them is Norm Ackland, an Elvis Tribute Artist, and Robert J. Prettie. They patented the game in the late 1990s.

On the other hand, you can buy a copy of the game for about $30 at Amazon or Walmart and be cursing your luck for hours over a game which many people play only once or twice. It can take hours to play.

That pretty much makes it just another Calvinball crib game, thanks to the Calvinball Cribbage Crowd (CCC). I’m on to their tricks—and they know it.

Where is the Hideout of the Calvinball Cribbage Crowd?

Today we went back to playing standard 6-card cribbage and it was a relief! After all of the Calvinball cribbage variations we’ve been muddling through, getting back to a standard game felt great.

I thought of a name for an imaginary group that comes up with all of the cribbage variations (whether they exist or not): the Calvinball Cribbage Crowd (CCC). The name “Calvinball crib” came from a Reddit thread contributor who replied to someone who posted an inquiry if anyone had ever played 10 card cribbage. The answer was “Yes, there have been many many posts of Calvinball crib.”

Actually, there’s another instance of the Calvinball name applied to cribbage on Reddit. It occurred on a different topic with a lot of comments about how to teach cribbage to someone else: “Cribbage is basically Calvinball.”

If you just google the term “Calvinball cribbage” you’ll find my blog posts using it in the titles in the last week.

As a reminder, the word “Calvinball” comes from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip series which ran in the papers between 1985-1995. It’s even defined in the Oxford English Dictionary. The word is used mainly in North America. The definition as it relates to cribbage is that it refers to the creation of a so many different rules made by different cribbage players that it ultimately leads to a sense of chaos in that there seems to be no consistent set of rules at all.

Anyway, as we played some of the cribbage variations that include increasing numbers of playing cards, I began to wonder why there isn’t a 12-card cribbage ever listed. That’s because the so-called 11 and 13 card variants are listed on the American Cribbage Congress (ACC) website, yet there’s no mention of a 12-card variant.

What gives? Is this a ploy to confuse the public about cribbage? Is the CCC a secret splinter group of the ACC? And is the CCC attempting to subvert the effort to maintain the supremacy of the classic standard 6-card game?

Let’s hope so (I’m only kidding). But this line of thought probably led to Sena asking if the United Kingdom has a national cribbage organization like the ACC in North America. I googled it for the first time today. In 2017, the United Kingdom Cribbage Association (UKCA) was formed to address the declining popularity of cribbage in the country, which actually got started there by Sir John Suckling in the 17^th century. Recall the ACC got started in 1980.

Naturally, that prompts the question of how common is Calvinball cribbage in the UKCA? You knew I was going to say that and don’t try to deny it. It’s difficult to answer. It looks like they prefer the 6-card game to 121 also although, admittedly, I didn’t investigate it thoroughly. They seem to be more conservative. So far, I don’t see any evidence (yet) for a UK chapter of the CCC. Of course this leads to the conspiracy theory (why not?) of the UK colluding with the Canadians to create the secret CCC in an effort to undermine the popularity of standard cribbage in northwestern and northeastern U.S. (where cribbage is very popular) and instead promote a collection of Calvinball crib variations to preoccupy Americans with counting endless complicated scoring combinations that prevent the completion of any games which typically last several hours and lead to starvation, exhaustion, confusion (did you say there are 40 fifteens for two or 142?), hemorrhoids from sitting too long, and the dreaded cankles.

In case you think I’m exaggerating, try to answer this question: Why is there no information whatsoever on 12-card cribbage? Don’t include AI instructions because they are confabulated.

Bigfoot and UFOs May be More Than Lore But 11 Card Cribbage is Out the Door!

Today, Sena “suggested” that we try make up our own version of the 11-card cribbage rumor. Recall that I picked up the idea from the American Cribbage Congress (ACC) web site that two of the many variations of cribbage are the 11 and 13 card games. I had e-mailed the ACC on Friday (two days ago) about the rules for them.

Based on the other oddball variants we’ve experimented on since last week (see my post, “Oddball Cribbage Variants Marathon Today and a Catatonic Squirrel!”), we dealt 11 cards, threw one card to the dealer’s crib, inspected our hands and tossed 3 more cards to the crib, making the crib 7 cards. That left 8 cards in our hands.

Predictably, pegging was not a big event, but counting the outrageously high hands and crib was. We had to use the cribbage scorer program developed by someone pitching the 9-card cribbage game on a Reddit cribbage thread.

It works sometimes but there is a hiccup with it not allowing input of face cards, which leads to problematic scoring. But for the most part, it works.

The short story is that we scored so high that we played only 3 hands before Sena won! Did that make the game faster? No, of course not. We spent over an hour trying to count our hands and cribs and that includes manual counting and giving up and resorting to the scorer program.

Sena’s 1st hand was 58 points according to the scorer: fifteens for 40 points; runs were 12; pairs were 6. Her cards are above the board (she was pone) and my 8-card hand and 7 card crib are below the board. The 2^nd and 3^rd hand were also horrendous. Sena won.

When we finished, I noticed that the ACC expert had answered my email. He had just got back from a big ACC tournament in Reno, Nevada. He asked several cribbage pros about the 11 and 13 card variants. Nobody had even heard of them, much less played them. He even asked the editor of Cribbage World magazine, his usual contact for questions like ours. He’s never heard of either one of the variants. This is despite their being mentioned on the ACC Article Library, quoted below:

“Did you know that there are at least 18 variations to the BASIC game of cribbage? There is the basic 2 or 4 handed game, and then there are the 5 card, 7 card, 11 card and 13 card cribbage games.”

I think that settles the question about the 11 and 13 card variations. They are part of the fascinating mythology of cribbage. I’m sure there’s more.

When Tariffs and Cribbage Boards Collide

I’m going to take a chance and mention tariffs in this post because it figures importantly in our cribbage game pastime. We have several cribbage boards we’ve bought over the years and one of them is from Ontario, Canada.

Michaud Toys is a company in Ontario which makes very nice wooden toys, many of them board games. It’s a small, family-owned craft shop in Ontario not far from the Niagara area. They are well-known for making excellent wooden toys, games, and puzzle boxes. A little over 6 years ago, we bought a jumbo cribbage board from them at a reasonable price. I think it was about $70.

It came with a nice storage bag, some metal pegs (2 inches long), a deck of cards, and a set of very accurate rules. It’s 27 ½” long and 8” wide. It’s great fun to play on. We feature it in several of our cribbage game YouTube videos.

It has a handy little cubby on the board which can hold the card deck, pegs, and rule booklet. This is covered by a cap which fits snugly over the hole and is secured by “powerful rare earth magnets.” They work. I can turn the board upside down and shake it—nothing pops out.

We were looking for a new cribbage board and checked what’s new at the on-line Michaud Toy store.

This is a novelty board which is sold as Cribbage Rumble although the web link has “cribbage wars” in it. That should ring a bell to anyone who has heard of the game with the name “Cribbage Wars.” We’ve never played Cribbage Wars but Cribbage Rumble resembles it. Cribbage War sells for about $20 or so. Cribbage Rumble is prettier—but it costs a lot more.

We’ve been playing several cribbage game variants lately. We were looking for yet another one, checked out the price of Cribbage Rumble and found out it includes a high tariff, which the company tells you about in bold red type with exclamation marks after it. It doesn’t use the word “tariff.”

I don’t know much about tariffs except that they’re taxes. The last time I interviewed President Trump, he was pretty enthusiastic about them (satire).

Tariffs work both ways. I don’t really know anything else about them. But they’re going to delay our purchase of Cribbage Rumble.

I wonder if a Cribbage Rumble match could be arranged between President Trump and Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney to settle this tariff business? I won the Cribbage Pro match with President Trump (satire). If President Trump wins, I get the Cribbage Rumble game free. If Prime Minister Carney wins—it stays on the shelf at Michaud Toys.

Jim vs Donald Trump on Cribbage Pro

Oddball Cribbage Variants Marathon Today and a Catatonic Squirrel!

All morning long today we played the oddball cribbage variants and we are wiped out! It’ll drive me to drink!

Sena is to blame for this. She “suggested” we play all 4 of the new multi-card weird cribbage variants we learned just in the last few days: 7-card, 8-card, 9-card, and 10-card. What did we learn from this? We learned one of the reasons why 6-card cribbage is the American Cribbage Congress (ACC) choice for their big grand national tournaments. Talk about needing to be able to play a cribbage in 15 minutes!

I won the 7, 8, and 9 card games and Sena won the 10-card game. We caught a squirrel on camera watching us who seemed catatonic probably because it couldn’t fathom why two people would subject themselves to this mind-bending ordeal.

You can spend an hour just trying to figure out your score for one hand in 9-card cribbage. If we had not had that cribbage scorer I found from a guy on a Reddit cribbage thread, we would not have been able to manage scoring a couple our hands. I know I said it didn’t work consistently—but it works well enough when you’re faced with scores as high as 36 and more! According to AI, the most common scores in 6-card cribbage are 4 and 2. Most cribbage scorers available on line or for smartphones are designed for 6-card cribbage, meaning you can’t enter more than 4 cards for the hand and one for the starter.

Thank goodness there is no information on the web for the rules of 11-card and 13-card cribbage, despite the ACC saying they are two of the many cribbage variations. If anybody asks me, “But Jim, what about the 12-card cribbage variant?” I will politely change the subject and talk about catatonic squirrels.

Sena is starting to warm up to the 8-card variant, although I’m doing my best to ignore her. It’s amazing the 10-card game is actually faster than the others and the hands are easier to count.

The only reason to play the 9-card variant is if you are tired of living. There should be a public service announcement about this game warning of the need for supplemental oxygen and K-rations because you won’t have time to do anything but mumble through the endless scoring rituals.

“OK, how many 15s for 2 do you see?”

“ZZZZZ…”

I would not play any of these variants past the 121 hole on a standard board, if you value your sanity. We agreed to play them that way. If you can’t persuade your spouse, friend, or catatonic squirrel to do that, you should consider resorting to thumb-wrestling, best 2 out of 3 falls. Seriously, playing 9-card cribbage to 363 should be considered a health hazard.

Short List of the Oddball Cribbage Variants with rules and comments (all are presumed to be for 2 players):

7-card: Deal 7 cards to each player, one to the dealer’s crib. Then look at your cards and throw 2 more cards to the dealer’s crib. There should be 5 cards in the crib and 5 cards in each player’s hand. The starter card makes 6 cards for your hand. Flushes are allowed: 4, 5, and 6 card flushes are allowed. In 4 and 5 card flushes all the cards should be in your hand. The highest score is 46 (4,4,5,6,6). I think this game has the smoothest play, but there will be hands that are difficult to score. There are 8 three-card runs for 24 points, 8 fifteens for 2 for 16 points, and 3 pairs for 6 points. Note, I found out the hard way that I can’t use the double run rule to count the runs and the pairs together to come up with the 30 points you have in pairs and 3-card runs. I missed two 3-card runs (6 points) and I could find them only by taking pictures of the double run counts including the pairs. In order to avoid missing them, it’s best to count all the runs and all the pairs separately and add them. Then add the 15 for 2 points (16).

8-card: Deal 8 cards to each player and each throw two cards to the dealer’s crib. Choose 4 cards to keep and two to the bottom of the deck. Each player then has 4 cards in their hands and uses the starter card to score with their hands. Play standard cribbage as usual to 121. This felt a little clunky at first, but you get used to it.

9-card: Carefully consider whether you really want to torture yourself with this variant—then go ahead and deal 9 cards to each player and throw 3 cards to the dealer’s crib. Play to 121. Scores will be high and challenging to count. There is one scoring program available which seems to work OK. I couldn’t put in J for Jack and make it work, but other initials like K for King seem to work. Numbers alone work best. Get the link from the Reddit thread:

10-card: This one is fun. Deal 10 cards each and two to the dealer’s crib. Divide your remaining 8 cards into 2 separate 4 card hands. Use one for pegging and both for the show (means scoring your hands). Play to 121. You get big scores but they’re more manageable.

Pay no attention to that catatonic squirrel.

A Few Thoughts on Calvinball Cribbage

OK, so Sena and I have been experimenting with a few cribbage variants in the last few days and I ran into this Calvinball comment on a Reddit cribbage thread about 10-card cribbage. Yes, people play that! I’m afraid to look on the web for 11-card cribbage although Sena asked about it.

Briefly, 10-card cribbage is usually a two-player game. Deal 10 cards each; 2 cards from each player go to the dealer’s crib; each player divides the remaining 8 cards into 2 four card hands, one for pegging and either one or both for the show.

As an aside, the Reddit thread person who started the thread about 10 card cribbage asked if anyone else ever played it. One commenter facetiously replied “Yes, there have been many many posts of Calvinball crib.”

You have to know where that term “Calvinball” comes from. I’m pretty sure it’s from another social media forum which plays a game called Calvinball—which is a whimsical, forever evolving game which has nothing to do with playing cards, is based on the comic Calvin & Hobbes and has no real rules whatsoever. Participants make it up as they go along. So, I think what the commenter might have meant was that 10-card cribbage is yet another of the many proliferating variants (some better than others) of the more well-established game, usually identified as 6-card cribbage.

Anyway, we found out later that there are two sets of rules for 10-card cribbage. The intent is to make the game play faster and yield higher scores.

Given that context, we played it both ways to 121. In the one set according to AI, you deal each player 10 cards and both throw 2 cards to the dealer’s crib. Each player divides the remaining cards into hands of 4 cards each. You play one hand only during the pegging phase and the other for the show (scoring the hand). It was pretty slow and didn’t yield high scores, partly because we used only the four card hand for the show.

And then there’s a Wikipedia article which says you peg with one hand and score both for the show. We got higher scores all around, the game was faster, and we both enjoyed it much more.

As a reminder follow up to the post about the 9-card and 8-card cribbage games, Sena still likes the 9-card variant but doesn’t care for the 8-card (neither do I) because it seems clunkier, probably because you need to bury cards under the deck. The 9-card variant has an on-line scorer which didn’t work consistently. We seemed to fare pretty well without it for the most part. The suggestion to play to 323 (up, back, and there again on a 121-hole board) seems like overkill. I’m retired but not that retired.

OK, is 8-Card Cribbage a Thing?

We’re still getting used to the 7-card cribbage game and guess what Sena asked me today?

“Is there an 8-card cribbage?”

So, I looked it up on the web and, sure enough, there was a Reddit thread a year ago with only one relevant entry. It was from someone asking if anybody else played 8-card cribbage. That person went on to admit uncertainty if it was a thing or not and wondered if they just made it up. I would vote for the latter. Two commenters didn’t shed any further light on the subject.

The rules for 8 card cribbage are that it’s played like 6-card cribbage except each player is dealt 8 cards, each chooses 4 cards to keep in the hand, tosses 2 cards to the dealer’s crib and the remaining 2 cards get buried at the bottom of the deck.

We gave 8-card cribbage a spin and it felt a little clunky, maybe because of the added motion of burying a couple of cards under the deck along with the extra cards—yet despite that we ended with 4 card hands and played to 121. So, it felt much like regular 6-card cribbage.

We both prefer 7-card cribbage. Even though it doesn’t have a lot of documentation about it, it feels less like word-of-mouth and a little more streamlined. The scores are more challenging to count. Anybody else out there ever heard of 8-card cribbage? Anybody else ever play 7-card cribbage?

15 Minute Push in Cribbage Game Today!

Today we filmed our cribbage game with a goal of completing a game in 15 minutes. We managed to do it, although I played out of turn on the last pegging phase. Sena got skunked today, but that’s rare!

You have to pay attention to the clock on the table in the video, showing we essentially made the 15-minute mark that cribbage tournament rules require for playing a game. We also decided to shuffle a few times every deal so as to try to mix the cards enough.

This is better than the time we usually take to play a typical game, which is generally 20 minutes. It’s hard to shave just 5 minutes off the game. I get pretty jittery trying to stay that focused, but today we did it. We helped each other, which doesn’t happen in tournaments. And there’s not the distraction of hundreds of other players in a giant auditorium all crammed together cheek by jowl and talking at once.

We’re not going to play that fast all the time.