Noddy, the card game before cribbage
Two hands of three, one count to 31, and the first to 31 points.
What Noddy is, and where cribbage came from
Noddy is in English print by 1589 and cribbage not until 1630, both dates the Oxford English Dictionary's, by way of the two reconstructions we read. Francis Willughby was still describing Noddy around 1665, in the manuscript both reconstructions build on. Ancestor, then, and Justin du Coeur's phrase for it is the quickest way in: small cribbage without the crib. David Parlett names a more complicated relative called Costly Colours, which we do not deal yet. The ambition here is the whole of what a pack of cards can play, so it is on the list.
The name is the jack. A noddy was a fool, and the jack of the starter suit is Knave Noddy, worth a point. If you know the modern game you will be at home inside a minute, and then a few things will trip you. Three cards, not four. Twenty-fives score like fifteens. There is no crib to throw to, and the match is to 31 rather than 121, so one good hand can settle it.
One reconstruction, and where the other one disagrees
Nobody alive has seen this game dealt in a 17th century parlour, so every modern rule set is a reconstruction from a handful of short descriptions. This table follows Justin du Coeur's 1996 reconstruction, built chiefly on Willughby. It is one documented version, not the one true set of rules, and the table says so under the cards.
Here is where it differs from David Parlett's reconstruction of the same sources. A jack turned up as the starter gives the dealer two here; Parlett gives the two to the non-dealer. Twenty-five scores two here, like fifteen; Parlett counts a point per card in the twenty-five. We do not mix the two. Parlett also keeps score with a peg on a 31-hole noddy board. We have no board and no pegs: the score sits on the screen above the cards, and the log under them shows every point as it lands.
The scoring, with a worked hand
The seventh card of the deal is turned up as the shared starter, and before anyone plays, both three-card hands are counted with it, the player who did not deal going first. Two points for any cards adding to fifteen, and two more for any set adding to twenty-five. A pair is two. Runs pay two for three cards and four for four, a flush of three or four cards pays a point a card, and Knave Noddy, the jack of the starter suit held in hand, adds one. A jack as the starter itself hands the dealer two the moment it is turned.
A worked hand. You hold a seven, an eight and a nine, and a six is turned up. Six and nine make fifteen, seven and eight make another, and the four cards run from six to nine: two, two and four, eight points before a card is played, a quarter of the match from one deal. Press Count both hands and the table lists each scoring combination it found and who took it, so you can check its arithmetic against yours.
Then the play, to 31
Cards go down alternately onto one pile and the running count may not pass 31. Hit fifteen or twenty-five exactly and that is two; match the card before yours and that is a pair for two, with three in a row worth six and four worth twelve. Runs across the last cards down pay two for three and a point a card beyond that, a flush of three or more in a row pays the same way, and the jack of the starter suit dropped on the pile is one.
Land on 31 exactly and you take two and the count ends. When the other one has nothing that keeps the count at 31 or under, they say go, whoever played last takes one, and the count ends there. One count per deal: whatever is left in hand goes aside, the deal crosses the table, and the first to 31 points wins on the spot, even halfway through a count. Worth knowing about the computer: it plays for points whenever a legal card gives it any and drops its lowest card when none does. It can be read, and reading it is how you learn the game.
What the table does, and what it does not
Britannica, Wikipedia and Parlett will tell you what Noddy was. None of them deals you a hand, and this page does, two ways. Against the computer, which is plain: it punishes a careless count and not much more, and that suits a game nobody has dealt in three hundred years, since you are both learning it. Or against somebody you send a link to, two seats at one table, with chat while you play and voice if the person who made the table switched it on. Either way the log under the cards names every point as it lands, yours and theirs.
The computer table loads with the first hand already dealt; there is no download and nobody asks you to sign in. New match wipes the score and starts over, and nothing is kept between visits, so a closed tab is a finished match. Its high contrast switch drains the colour from the table, and every card in your hand carries its name in words as well as pips, so red never has to be told from black by colour alone. A table you share waits 48 hours for the other person and then goes. It is free, like every table here. An ad may turn up now and then; discreet is the intention.
Questions people ask
What is the noddy game?
Noddy is an English card game first mentioned in 1589 and the ancestor of cribbage. Two people get three cards each and a starter is turned up. Hands are counted for fifteens, twenty-fives, pairs, runs and flushes, then the cards are played out to a count of 31. There is no crib. The first to 31 points wins.
What is the oldest card game still played today?
We run a table, not a history department, so we will not crown one. What the two reconstructions we read agree on is that Noddy was in print by 1589 and cribbage by 1630, which makes it older than the game that replaced it. Plenty of games are older still. This one you can deal right now.
What is the easiest card game ever?
Not this one. The best game is the one where you both know the rules, or neither of you does, and Noddy is the second kind: nobody knows it, so nobody has the edge. Easy is Crazy Eights, which fits in a paragraph. A count to 31 with some teeth, and a story behind it, is Noddy.
What is the hardest card game to play?
Of the games here, Piquet, in our opinion, and it is not close. Noddy is not hard, it is unfamiliar. The count is cribbage arithmetic with twenty-fives added, the play to 31 works the same way, and a match to 31 is short enough that you can lose the first hand badly and be level by the third.
How to play
Two people, three cards each, and a seventh card turned face up as the shared starter. The rest of the pack is put aside and takes no part in the hand. A jack turned up as the starter pays the dealer two straight away.
Before a card is played, both hands are counted with the starter, the player who did not deal counting first. Any cards adding to fifteen score two, and so does any set adding to twenty-five. A pair is two. A run pays two for three cards and four for four, a flush pays a point a card, and the jack of the starter's suit held in hand is Knave Noddy for one.
Then the cards go down one at a time onto the table and the running count may not pass 31. Fifteen and twenty-five on the nose score two, a card matching the one before it is a pair for two, three in a row is six and four is twelve, and runs and flushes across the last cards down score as they do in the hand.
Land on 31 exactly and you take two and the count is over. If you cannot put anything down without passing 31 you say go, your opponent takes a point, and the count ends there. Whatever is left in hand goes aside. There is one count per deal and no crib.
The deal crosses the table after every hand and the first player to 31 points wins on the spot, even in the middle of a count. This table follows one documented reconstruction of the game, named under it, and does not mix it with the others.
Watch a game played out, one move at a time, with the rules in full.