Cribbage online for two
Two players, six cards each, first to 121.
How a hand of cribbage goes
Two players and one pack of 52. The table cuts for deal first, and the lower card deals, aces low. Then the pack is shuffled fresh and each of you gets six cards. Each lays two face down into the crib, which belongs to the dealer and is counted last. The next card of the pack is turned up as the starter. If it is a jack, the dealer takes two points for his heels on the spot.
The player who did not deal leads, and you take turns putting cards on one shared count that may not pass 31. When neither of you can play, the count starts again from zero, and the play goes on until all eight kept cards are down. Then the hands are counted with the starter: the non-dealer first, then the dealer, then the crib. The deal crosses the table every hand.
The first to 121 wins, and the game stops the moment a score reaches it, whether that is in the middle of the play or in the non-dealer's count before the dealer has counted at all. The last award can carry a score past 121, so a winning total of 122 or 124 is perfectly normal.
Scoring the play to 31
A card that brings the count to fifteen scores two, and so does one that makes 31 exactly. Play the same rank as the card before and that is a pair, two points. Three of a rank in a row is six and four is twelve. If the last three or more cards form a run, in any order, they score a point a card, so seven, nine, eight scores three for whoever played the eight.
If you cannot play without passing 31, you say go. The other player keeps playing while anything of theirs fits. When neither of you can, whoever played the last card takes one point for the go and the count starts again, led by the other player. Nothing carries across that reset. Making 31 exactly scores two instead, never two and then one more. The very last card of the hand scores one, unless it made 31.
Counting the hands and the crib
Each hand is four cards plus the starter. Every different set of cards adding to fifteen scores two, with faces worth ten and aces one. Every pair scores two, so three of a kind is six. A run of three or more scores a point a card, and it counts again for each way you can make it: three, three, four, four and five is four runs of three, plus two pairs and two fifteens, twenty in all.
Four cards of one suit in your hand are a flush for four, or five when the starter matches too. The crib scores a flush only when all five match. Holding the jack of the starter's suit is nobs, one point. A worked hand from the staged game: you keep two fives, the jack of spades and a four, and the six of spades is turned up. Four fifteens, a pair, two runs of three and nobs make seventeen.
Tips from the kitchen table
When the crib is yours, give it cards that score together, a pair or two that make fifteen. When it is your opponent's, give it cards that do not, and keep fives out of it, since every ten card in the pack makes fifteen with a five. A good hand to keep still matters more than either, which is why the computer here weighs every starter it cannot rule out before it lays away.
In the play, lead a card under five, so no single card answers it with fifteen. Try not to leave the count on five or twenty-one, where any ten card scores two. Play a card next to the last one only when you hold the card that takes the run back. And count before you play: a card that will not fit under 31 is dimmed, not lost.
How the table plays it
We follow the card play and scoring of the American Cribbage Congress rules for two players with six cards each, not its tournament procedures. Every score is counted for you and listed with the cards that made it, so nothing is missed and there is no muggins, the rule that lets an opponent claim points you forgot. There is no pegboard either; the scores sit above the cards.
To play a friend, make a table and send the link. Each of you sees your own hand and your own two crib cards, and nothing of the other hand until it is played or counted. Chat is in every room, and voice if the host switches it on. Against the computer, the game runs in your browser, and the computer sees only its own cards and what has been played, as you do. New match starts again, and nothing is saved.
Questions people ask
How do you play cribbage with 2 players?
Each player gets six cards and lays two face down into the dealer's crib. A starter is turned up. You take turns playing cards to a running count no higher than 31, scoring as you go. Then the player who did not deal counts first, the dealer second, the crib last. First to 121 wins.
What is nobs in cribbage?
Nobs is one point for holding the jack of the same suit as the starter. It counts in your hand or in the crib when they are shown. If the starter itself is a jack, that is heels instead: the dealer takes two points at once, before anyone plays a card.
What is the highest possible hand in cribbage?
Twenty-nine. You hold three fives and the jack, and the fourth five is turned up in the jack's suit. That is eight fifteens for sixteen points, six pairs for twelve, and nobs for one. The starter must match the jack: the same ranks with a different jack would lose that last point.
Can you play cribbage online with a friend?
Yes. Make a table on the room page and send the link to one other person. When they open it, the cut and deal happen on their own. Play on your own devices, with chat and optional voice. Your hand stays private until played; your crib cards stay private until the crib is counted.
How to play
Two players, six cards each. Each lays two into the dealer's crib, and a starter is turned up; a jack there pays the dealer two at once.
The player who did not deal leads. Take turns playing to a count no higher than 31, scoring fifteens, 31, pairs and runs. When neither of you can play, the last card down takes one and the count starts again, until all eight kept cards are down.
Then the non-dealer's hand is counted, the dealer's, and the crib, each with the starter. The deal crosses after every hand, and the first to 121 wins the moment a score gets there.
Watch a hand played out, one move at a time, with the rules in full.