Does anyone here play cribbage?
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So I was watching my Toy thread, and card games came up. I mentioned that I grew up with cribbage. Others had no idea what I was talking about. My grandmother taught this game to me at a very early age and it is still in my blood and I only know a couple of friends who play. I also plan to teach my kids this game when they are ready (I continue to plant the seed year after year). Yes, brainwashing - I know.
Doe anyone else here love cribbage?
- 24 comments, 49 replies
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I learned it many moons ago and played it for a while. I have not played it in eons.
I did enjoy it, but no one else around at the time did very much and thus my lack of recent play.
@baqui63 Yes, you do need someone around who can play but do you still remember all of it and are just rusty - download an app for fun!
@mfladd True, there is certainly an app for that!
i also knew it at one point, but would need a refresher to play.
the board i used was nowhere near as fancy as the 29 board depicted here
/image cribbage board
@Yoda_Daenerys There are so many different boards but they all lead to the same place. I posted the “29” hand board because that is the Holy Grail of hands. I have never got one.
@Yoda_Daenerys refresher.
Go cribbage!
@mfladd i want to do this instead of watching tv with my wife, i love games
@mfladd i think i will need to watch this later, TMI tonight, but thanks - I need to check some garage sales!
This has been a favorite in our household for many, many years. Even found a miniature folding set to take camping.
@dolphinone Yes!!! I also had a mini-folding one on a cruise. My best-man (wedding) knew how to play.
@mfladd I find that fewer and fewer people play card games of any type now. I remember as a teenager (110 years ago) playing tournaments of both cribbage and Spades. Now, people give me a blank stare when I ask if they have played.
@dolphinone Spades I have played, but don’t remember it well. Same thing with - Bridge. Rummy “500” I do. We live in sad times now, as far as non-betting card games go.
@mfladd Euchre is popular in these parts, along with Pinochle, Hearts, Oh Hell!, Egyptian Rat Screw, HOAK(m), Spoons, BS, 500 - all great cards games
@Yoda_Daenerys Spoons - wait - I kinda remember spoons.
@dolphinone @mfladd Played quite a bit of Spades in college as a time-killing method; this was pre-Internet, mind you
/image pre-internet
I used to hear “fifteen for two” in my dreams. I was never super good at it as a kid, but it was a very fun game to play around the table, as long as the table was a triangle.
@Morgue hahaha…fifteen for two, four - and a double run of three for 8. Wait, and the right jack for 1 more.
One of the great things about cribbage is that once you have a decent handle on the rules and basic strategy, you can compete head-to-head with anyone. Some may claim that’s its worst feature but I like the fellowship of it.
My grandmother (Mom’s mom) taught me to play cribbage and Pinochle. I have vivid memories of playing them with her in the '70s by the pool at her apartment building in Redwood City. I just visited my birth-mom a couple weeks ago and we played a few hands. My friend Ron and I used to play with his father Ron, who is sadly deceased. I remember when Ron senior had a jack in his hand that didn’t match the starter, he’d count “15-two, 15-four, a pair is six and nobs is six.” I just did that with my birth-mom and she had actually never heard that before.
@SSteve Yes. You rock.
Condolences for your friends dad.
@SSteve “when Ron senior had a jack in his hand that didn’t match the starter, he’d count … nobs for six”.
I’m so confused . Your mom has never heard of cheating? (the jack has to match the starter) Or had your mom just never heard of “nobs”? Or was Ron not cheating: “15-two, 15-four, a pair is six and nobs is six.” meaning that he was counting zero points for his non-nobs jack?
@DrWorm I looked at this twice. I then took it as he was zero counting the “nobs”.
@DrWorm He was counting zero for the non-nobs jack.
@SSteve Well, then it makes sense that your birth-mom had never heard that before.
Used to play with my mother when I was younger, been a long time and I certainly don’t remember the rules. Every once in a while I see a board though and my interest is piqued.
@brhfl It’s never to late to get back in the game.
Not for years, since I was in…middle school, I think. I only knew one other person that enjoyed it growing up. Family friend. Adult. Insisted on playing with “muggins” despite me being a beginner.
@harrison “Muggins” was just “cut throat” to me. And the fact that someone wanted to play this version with a beginner is just wrong.
@harrison When I was a kid, my Dad would always ask me “Can I have the other two points?” (or however many I missed). As long as I recognized it when prompted, he always let me keep the points. When I became an adult, we sometimes played “muggins”, but I don’t think either of us knew that was what it was called.
My parents played a lot and got me playing it. Now I’ve converted my girlfriend and we all play a good deal. Even took our little mini folding cribbage board with us to Ireland recently. I think I have 4 or 5 boards now.
@Bingo Congrats on converting your girlfriend. My wife has no interest so I will rely on teaching the kids when the time is right.
My Grandfather taught me to play eons ago, and I love the opportunity to play whenever I can find a willing opponent. I have a ‘29’ board as shown in the posers pic, as well as a dozen or so boards of various design - the board variety is part of the fun! ‘Once arounds’ are definitely my favorite, as the ‘twice arounds’ can get confusing as to the direction and if it is the first or second time around - it gets worse the older I get!
@phonorad Wait. did you just call me a poser? Or did you have a spelling problem?
Also, I agree with you that the variety of game board designs is great.
@mfladd Sorry, Poster!
I learned it as a boy from my father, and now that you have brought it up, it is probably a good time to teach it to my son. Tried to get the wife (avid card player) to give it a try a few years back and she shut it down in short order, saying it was too complicated. (I think the two steps (the playing of the cards, then the showing and counting of points in your hand) really threw her for a loop.
I mentioned this in the toy thread, but I think cribbage is one of the few card games that is legitimately enjoyable with two players. I have played three-handed cribbage ( and I noticed some fancier boards in this thread accommodate three players), but I suppose the fact that it is not conducive for larger groups might be considered a knock on it by some people.
@DrWorm I just mentioned the wife thing above. Mine also shut it down. Focus on the children. I also agree that I love two player cribbage most. I have played 3&4 handed games and it is just not the same fun as skunking a single player.
I have since I was very young. Just old enough to count and add. We have taught all of the kids in the family to carry on the tradition.
To mix things up once in while we play it were you don’t want to get points and you try to keep your hand as low as possible . In the crib hand if you get nothing we’ve always refered to that as a 19 hand and playing it give away style, you have to take 19 points. Makes for an interesting game some times
@Kimbob252 I thought we were the only ones to do that! We called it “crummage” - for the crummy hands.
@paulmiller423 that’s a great name for it! We’ve never really had a name for it, do now though : )
I decided to learn it after I kept seeing the boards in thrift stores and toy sections and got tired of not knowing what the hell it’s for. I actually enjoyed the game and played on my phone for a while (I rarely ever have anyone to play table games). I haven’t played it in eons now though so I’m probably super rusty, but I’d totes play again.
I still have the app though if you fancy a game. This is the one I used to play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fullersystems.cribbage
And they have a version for online play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fullersystems.cribbage.online
There’s also always Tabletop Simulator on Steam, which probably has a cribbage board.
My grandfather taught me to play when I was a kid. We played every time we went to visit him. I still have the board he made for me. My dad is the only person I know now who still plays.
@hallmike Yes. Can you show me the board and I will show you mine from my grandmother.
@mfladd I usually LOVE playing “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” but mine is currently packed in a box in a storage unit while we prepare to move.
@hallmike Ok, so I will show you mine in a few.
In looking up show you gifs how fucking funny is this…
@mfladd That poor kid is being sucked in early! I would still like to see yours.
@hallmike
ok. phew…you mean the cribbage board
@mfladd Yeah. Right. That’s totally what I meant.
@hallmike I am downloading now from email. For some reason my phone decided not to share with the desktop. She can be such a bitch.
@hallmike I have a few boards but the one I care about most is the one my Grandmother won in the cribbage tournament from a fishing camp in Maine. We went there every summer since I was born. The cabin boys would make them. 1 year I was a cabin boy and I also made one for a lucky guest.
@mfladd Very cool. Do you know where the one you made ended up?
@hallmike I do not. I was young, foolish, didn’t care - and just wanted to get with the cabin girls and waitresses. I apologize for my lust of youth.
Edit - nah, I don’t apologize.
http://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/U7oiDnCj2QGE0c-QeaZeqsK2iqw/fit-in/2048xorig/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-/2014/04/10/781/n/3019466/333095056d80d34c_tinamaytwerk/i/Let-your-freak-flag-fly.gif
@mfladd Fuck, my gif didn’t take! I am ashamed.
The cut throat boy scouts taught me how to play just recently… I am not very good, but it was fun!!
@mikibell This makes you more hot - that, and that you are going to make me french toast.
@mfladd where are you on the game setback???
@mikibell This is not a game I know.
as a diehard New Englander, yes I play. I used to play in a league. Now that I have moved to New York, no one I know plays, unless they were from New England, or in the Navy…
@Oldelvis Diehard NE? Glad to meet ya! Yeah, what do you expect in New York? Sorry, for your cribbage loss.
Cribbage is popular in the navy?
@Oldelvis Also in high school in MA we always played a game called “45” Do you remember this?
http://www.bicyclecards.com/how-to-play/forty-five/
@mfladd I read that when an Admiral or some big wig retires, that a Cribbage board is part of the package. This is part of the history.
http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=29429
@Oldelvis best hand a 28 ( right 10) in the woods of Maine on a camping trip…
@Oldelvis Holy Shit. Great article! Thanks for sharing that.
p.s. a 28 is fabulous, bitch!
I use to play this a lot but no one my age wanted to play with me.
Probably forgotten all my skills by now.
I played regularly around 1993 or so when I shared a company apartment w/ a fellow from Scituate Mass.
he taught me to play and we played almost every night after dinner.
we had to start keeping track as we both complained that the other “always won”.
as it turned out, he won quite a bit more games than I did, but I skunked him more often than he did me, leaving us both feeling like the other was getting the best of us.
have not played since that year. miss you, Tom.
Love cribbage.
I learned playing at my maternal grandparents. Everyone played. I joined the Navy and served on an attack Submarine and there, as you can imagine, card games were very popular and Cribbage being one of them. One of the things I like about it as a “Family Game” is at a gathering you can dispense with the scoring and just keep rotating folks in and out as people want to play or chat. I’ve seen a table with 6 people playing. Requires friendly players.
So I am talking with an online site to see if they could host tournament for us. I am not sure if this could happen. But I am hoping.
@mfladd oh, my jiminey crickets!!! this would be so fabulous!!! it if can happen, could be way cool fun!!! thanks mfladd…
@mfladd Competition is always my word of the day.
Growing up in Michigan you had to know how to play Cribbage, Euchre, and Michigan Rummy. Not necessarily in that order. Euchre was the bar game (for God’s sake NO talking!), Cribbage was played with your Gramma or mother-in-law, and Michigan Rummy with friends and lots of beer.
You ain’t shit unless you know that a double skunk is when you peg out before your opponent reaches third street.
@Mehrocco_Mole nobody plays shit together anymore!!! everybody on their damn phones… even during dinner!!! grumble, grumble, grumble… makes me so sad…euchre is the most fun 4 people game, spades is fun too… cribbage, the greatest ever 2 people game!!!.. ummm, i hate playing rummy…
I haven’t played in well over twenty years now, but it is such a great memory I have of learning it and playing against my dad and grandfather. I still have my grandfather’s homemade board (which may have been HIS dad’s - who knows). Good times.
Broke my back in two places at 17. Cribbage kept me sane during the year I was in a brace and felt like I couldn’t do anything. Now I just play cribbage solitaire. Still keeps me sane but no arguments when I count points
I grew up with cribbage being the go-to guys game whenever we had family get togethers or camping trips. I have since learned that many people think it is a weak/pansy game even though they have never played it. I still play whenever i’m back with family.