Cribbage Variations?
Bryan Stout
I have just learned how to play cribbage. I enjoy the game (so do my
and 9-year-old daughter), and I see why it has been popular so long,
and so stable.
Nevertheless, I am surprized that so old and popular a game has so few
variations. Looking through my various games books I see the
principles are: 6-card, 5-card, and even 7-card; 2-player, 3-player,
and 4-player partnerships. That's about it!
I have seen two variations: Scarne does mention Auction Cribbage,
where players bid for the right to get the crib (bids are in points
one is willing to subtract from one's score. And Expert Software's
Card Game Classics 95, whose AI is abominable, does have the
interesting variation of reversis cribbage (they call it Losing Crib),
where one tries to force the other player to get to 121 first.
So, some questions:
1. What other variations do people know of?
2. In his _History of Card Games_, David Parlett says that
"individual schools spice it up with side payments for various
features that can occur during the course of play". He also mentions
the game of Costly Colors, which he describes somewhat but not enough
to play. Do people know of either the side payments, or the rules to
Costly Colors?
3. While learning the game, some variations seemed obvious to me,
though I have not tried them yet. How do these ideas seem to you?
A) Allow flushes to be scored if 3 long (for 3 points), both in hand,
crib, and during play. This makes them equivalent to runs in scoring,
and should allow for more options to choose from.
B) Deal more than one hand from the deck before reshuffling -- say, 3
hands for a 2-player 6-card game, 2 hands for 3 or 4 players. This
allows the exercize of card memory and inference about what the
opponent are likely to be holding.
C) For a 4-player game, the dealer and eldest get 4 cards each, their
partners get 6. Those with 6 discard 2 cards face down to their
partners, who add them to their hands and then discard 2 each to the
crib. This allows the greater strategy of the 2-player hands to apply
to the partnership situation. (Similarly, in the 3-player game let
one of the dealer's opponents have 6 cards, discarding 2 to the crib,
rather than having all discard just 1.)
Thoughts?
Bryan
Conderson1
"Players get to bid on the crib..."
Please do explain, it sounds interesting.
Mi3ke
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Fillip & Carom Games
bst...@mindspring.com (Bryan Stout) wrote:
>I have just learned how to play cribbage. I enjoy the game (so do my
>and 9-year-old daughter), and I see why it has been popular so long,
>and so stable.
>
>Nevertheless, I am surprized that so old and popular a game has so few
<snip>
>So, some questions:
>
>1. What other variations do people know of?
There's a unique variation called "Grand Slam Cribbage"
from Canada that's played with 4 jokers added to the deck, and
can be played by up to five players.
Bryan Stout
conde...@aol.com (Conderson1) wrote:
> "Players get to bid on the crib..."
> Please do explain, it sounds interesting.
> Mi3ke
After cards are dealt, the dealer opens bidding on the crib. The
winner of the auction subtracts the number of points he bid from his
score (this can go below zero, as it must for the first hand of the
game). He both gets the crib and scores his hand first, making it
especially valuable in a tight endgame.
Scarne doesn't say what happens if noone bids -- one can say the
dealer gets the crib anyway, but score his hand last, as usual.
That's about it, but see _Scarne's Encyclopedia of Card Games_ for the
actual reference.
Bryan
Glenn M Gauthier
Bryan Stout (bst...@mindspring.com) wrote:
: I have just learned how to play cribbage. I enjoy the game (so do my
: and 9-year-old daughter), and I see why it has been popular so long,
: and so stable.
: Nevertheless, I am surprized that so old and popular a game has so few
: variations. Looking through my various games books I see the
: principles are: 6-card, 5-card, and even 7-card; 2-player, 3-player,
: and 4-player partnerships. That's about it!
<snip>
Bryan
For organized play, contact the America Cribbage Congress at 1-888-PEG-GING
or www.cribbage.org.
Another variation for three players is Captain.
1) One player is designated as Captain and starts at the end of 2nd street
(i.e., that player only needs 61 points to win)
2) The other two players are a team, and score off the same pegs (i.e., they
need 121 points combined to win).
3) Each player is dealt 5 cards, with one card dealt to the crib.
4) Each player discards 1 card to crib.
5) Deal rotates to the left.
6) Other play is standard.
7) Rotate who is Captain.
Glenn
Mark Johnson
I just read about one called CrossCrib over on
http://www.gamecabinet.com/. It's actually a separate game you can buy,
but the concept is simple and easy enough to experiment with on your own.
You and the opposing player (or partners, if you prefer) are building a 5
x 5 matrix of cards. One card is placed in the very center as a starter,
and presumably each side starts with a "hand" of twelve cards. You take
turns laying them down, filling the 5 x 5 matrix. One side scores the
horizontal rows as per normal cribbage, the other side scores the vertical
columns.
-- __
Mark Johnson, joh...@ccnet.com Microgame HQ and / \
<http://www.ccnet.com/~johnson/> Tri-Valley Boardgamers \__/
Scott D. Rhodes
>After cards are dealt, the dealer opens bidding on the crib. The
>winner of the auction subtracts the number of points he bid from his
>score (this can go below zero, as it must for the first hand of the
>game). He both gets the crib and scores his hand first, making it
>especially valuable in a tight endgame.
Is the order bidder's hand, non-bidder's hand, crib; or bidder's hand, crib,
non-bidder's hand?
>Scarne doesn't say what happens if noone bids -- one can say the
>dealer gets the crib anyway, but score his hand last, as usual.
Presumably in most cases someone would be willing to bid at least one. Or
maybe bids of zero are allowed?
Bryan Stout
rho...@ipass.net (Scott D. Rhodes) wrote:
>>The
>>winner of the auction subtracts the number of points he bid from his
>>especially valuable in a tight endgame.
>Is the order bidder's hand, non-bidder's hand, crib; or bidder's hand, crib,
>non-bidder's hand?
Scarne says "The winner of the crib plays first and has the first
meld. (In standard Two-Handed Cribbage, the nondealer has the first
meld.)" I'd interpreted that as meaning bidder's hand, crib,
nonbidder's hand, but guess it can be interpreted either way -- this
can of course be experimented with and decided however the players
like it.
>>Scarne doesn't say what happens if noone bids -- one can say the
>>dealer gets the crib anyway, but score his hand last, as usual.
>Presumably in most cases someone would be willing to bid at least one. Or
>maybe bids of zero are allowed?
I assume not, but it doesn't say so explicitly. Again, people can
experiment with variations however they see fit.
Bryan
Bryan Stout
>2. In his _History of Card Games_, David Parlett says that
>"individual schools spice it up with side payments for various
>features that can occur during the course of play". He also mentions
>the game of Costly Colors, which he describes somewhat but not enough
>to play. Do people know of either the side payments, or the rules to
>Costly Colors?
I have found costly colours in Parlett's _Dictionary of Card Games_;
he also describes the side payments for "dozens" and "nineteen in the
box" in the cribbage article. Don't know why I forgot to look there
in the first place.
>3. While learning the game, some variations seemed obvious to me,
>though I have not tried them yet. How do these ideas seem to you?
Another idea:
D) Reserves. In the first hand of play, deal 8 to each player. Each
lays 2 cards face down to his personal reserve, as well 2 to the crib.
Play the hand normally, ingoring the reserve. In each subsequent
deal, give each player 6 cards; players add their reserves to their
hand, and play 2 each to the reserve and crib as before. This allows
players to save good cards in hopes of forming high-scoring hands in
future deals.
Bryan