How to Play Cribbage

The crib is a bonus 4-card hand that belongs to the dealer (in 4-player, the dealer's team). The dealer counts it last, after their own hand.

Everyone contributes to it during discarding:

• 2 players: each discards 2 cards.
• 3 players: each discards 1; the dealer is dealt an extra card that goes straight to the crib.
• 4 players: each discards 1.

Strategy tip: good discards keep a strong 4-card hand and either feed the crib (if it's yours) or starve it (if it's not).

After discards, the deck is cut and one card is turned face up. It acts as a shared 5th card for every hand (and the crib) when counting.

If the starter is a Jack, the dealer immediately scores 2 points. This is called "his heels" or "two for his heels".

Starting with the player on the dealer's left, players take turns playing one card face-up onto a shared pile, announcing the running total. The total cannot exceed 31.

Card values: Ace = 1, face cards = 10, all others = face value.

Score points immediately when you:

• Make the total hit exactly 15 → 2 points
• Make the total hit exactly 31 → 2 points
• Play a pair (matching rank) → 2 (pair), 6 (three of a kind), 12 (four)
• Play a card that forms a run of 3+ with the previous cards (any order, no gaps, suit ignored) → 1 point per card in the run

Last card

Whoever plays the last card before the count is dead (nobody can play anything else without exceeding 31) scores 1 point for the last card. The pile then resets to 0 and the other player leads the next round of play.

The exception: if that last card brought the total to exactly 31, the player scores 2 for 31 instead — the 31 replaces the 1-point last-card bonus, it doesn't stack with it.

"Go"

When it's your turn but every card in your hand would push the total over 31, you say "go". Your opponent keeps playing whatever cards they can (still capped at 31). Once neither player can play, the last person to play a card scores their last-card point (the 1 or 2 described above) and the pile resets.

"Go" isn't a separate point you score — it's just the mechanism for ending a round of play when somebody can't continue.

After pegging, each player counts their 4-card hand using the starter as a shared 5th card. Non-dealer first, then dealer, then the crib.

What counts:

• Fifteens — every distinct combination of cards summing to 15 = 2 points
• Pairs — 2 per pair (three of a kind = 6, four = 12)
• Runs — N points per N-card sequence; a double run (e.g., 4–5–5–6) scores both runs plus the pair
• Flush — 4 in hand = 4 points; +1 if the starter matches the suit (5 total). The crib only scores a flush if all 5 cards share a suit.
• His nobs — Jack in your hand matching the starter's suit = 1 point

The highest possible hand is 29: five fives is impossible, but four 5s plus a Jack of the starter's suit gets close. (Don't hold your breath.)

Each player (or team) has two pegs on a 121-point track. When you score, you move the back peg in front of the front peg by the number of points scored. The leapfrog pattern lets observers verify every score.

Reach the finish hole first to win. If you win while your opponent is still in the back half of the board:

• Skunk — opponent didn't cross 91
• Double skunk — opponent didn't cross 61

(In some house rules a skunk is worth double stakes. In this app they're tracked but don't change the outcome.)

Putting it all together, every round goes:

1. Cut for deal — lowest card deals first.
2. Deal — 6 cards each (2p), 5 each (3p/4p).
3. Discard to crib — every player feeds the dealer's extra hand.
4. Cut the starter — top of the remaining deck becomes a shared 5th card.
5. Pegging — take turns playing cards; score as you go.
6. Counting — non-dealer counts first, then dealer, then the crib.
7. Deal rotates. Repeat until someone hits 121.

Everyone plays for themselves on a 3-lane board. Deal is 5 cards each. The dealer also receives one extra card that goes straight into the crib, so each player only discards 1 card.

Pegging proceeds in turn order. If a player goes out of cards (or says "go") while others can still play, the remaining players continue alternating. Counting goes non-dealer-left → non-dealer-right → dealer → crib.

First player to 121 wins. The crib belongs to whoever dealt that round.

Partners sit across the table — seats 1 & 3 vs seats 2 & 4. Deal is 5 cards each; each player discards 1 to the crib.

Scoring is per-team: pegging points, hand points, and the crib all go to whichever team the scoring player belongs to. The board has two lanes, one per team. The crib belongs to the dealer's team.

First team to 121 wins. Partner communication during play is not allowed — you signal entirely through the cards you choose to play.

PegOut's standout feature is a custom-trained neural network that plays cribbage at expert level — and helps you do the same. There are three ways to use it:

1. Play against the model

Every difficulty (gear menu) plays via the same expert solver: exact expected-value discards and a forward-looking pegging model.Hard always takes the best line; Medium and Easy deliberately mix in weaker plays — but their mistakes look human (the second-best line, not a random card), so beginners aren't crushed.

2. See the AI's suggestion before you commit

Turn on AI hints (gear menu → Hints → AI). During discarding, the model highlights its preferred 2-card discard; during pegging, it highlights the play it would make. You can follow the suggestion or override it — and over time, the gap between your instinct and the model's pick gets smaller.

Lighter heuristic hints are also available if you want suggestions without the AI overhead. They use a simpler scoring model with sequence lookahead.

3. Get graded after every hand

At the end of each game you see a play-quality grade comparing your decisions to the AI's choices. Three scores:

• Discard score — how often you kept the best 4-card hand the AI would have kept.
• Pegging score — how close your pegging plays were to the model's preferred moves.
• Combined score — overall play quality for the game.

The grade isn't tied to whether you won — even a lucky win shows where you could have played better, and a tough loss against a good model still rewards good moves.

• Automatic counting — every hand and crib is scored for you. No missed points, no muggins.
• Multiplayer rooms — share a 4-character code with friends. 2-, 3-, and 4-player matches all supported, with teams in 4-player.
• Stats tracking — every game is recorded locally: win rate, average hand, skunks, double skunks, and your best and worst hands.
• Offline play — install PegOut as a PWA and the single-player mode works without a network connection.

Settings worth knowing

Open the gear icon (top-right) to customize:

• Difficulty — easy / medium / hard for the computer opponent.
• Animation speed — slow / normal / fast, or off entirely.
• Hints — heuristic and AI suggestions on or off.
• Win expectancy — show the live probability of winning during a 2-player game.
• Highlight my lane — dim the opponent's pegs on the board to focus on your own progress.
• Auto-go — automatically say "go" when no card is playable, so the game keeps moving.
• Themes — pick from multiple felt colors, card backs, and cribbage board styles.

• "15-2" — counting fifteens out loud: "15 for 2, 15 for 4…"
• "Muggins" — claiming points your opponent missed counting (not enforced in this app — we always score correctly for you)
• "His heels" — dealer's 2 points when the starter is a Jack
• "His nobs" — 1 point for holding the Jack of the starter's suit
• "Nineteen hand" — a hand worth zero (the highest impossible score; cribbers joke about it)