page_title: Cribbage
section_title: Cribbage board
hierarchical_section_title: Cribbage / Cribbage board
caption_attribution_description: 120-hole cribbage board
context_page_description: Cribbage, or crib, is a card game traditionally for two players, but commonly played with three, four or more, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points. Cribbage has several distinctive features: the cribbage board used for score-keeping, the eponymous crib, box, or kitty —a separate hand counting for the dealer—two distinct scoring stages and a unique scoring system including points for groups of cards that total fifteen. It has been characterized as "Britain's national card game" and the only one legally playable on licensed premises without requiring local authority permission.
  The game has relatively few rules yet yields endless subtleties during play. Tactical play varies, depending on which cards one's opponent has played, how many cards in the remaining deck will help the hand one holds, and what one's position on the board is. A game may be decided by only a few points—or even a single point—and the edge often goes to an experienced player who utilizes strategy, including calculating odds and making decisions based on the relative positions of players on the board.
context_section_description: Visually, cribbage is known for its scoring board—a series of holes ("streets") on which the score is tallied with pegs (also known as "spilikins"). Scores can be kept on a piece of paper, but a cribbage board is almost always used, since scoring occurs throughout the game, not just at the conclusion of hands as in most other card games.
  Points are registered as having been scored by "pegging" along the crib board. Two pegs are used in a leapfrog fashion, so that if a player loses track during the count one peg still marks the previous score. Some boards have a "game counter" with many additional holes for use with a third peg to count the games won by each side.
  There are several designs of crib board:
  The classic design is a flat wooden board approximately 250–300 mm (10–12 in) by 70–80 mm (3–4 in) and 10–20 mm (0.4–0.8 in) deep. There are two sets of 60 holes (30 'out' and 30 'back') divided into 5 point sections. A pegging-out hole in the middle at each end allows the board to be used in either direction. One player or team scores on one set of 60 holes and the other player or team scores on the second set. Different arrangements are made for three player games.
  A relatively old design is that of an equilateral triangle with two rows of forty holes on each side. These boards did not generally include extra pegging-out holes or holes to count games.
  A newer design has three or four rows of 120 holes in a "paperclip" shape (with a pegging-out hole at the end) and is often brightly coloured. It is best suited to games played to 121, though it can also be used for 61-point games.
  A tournament long board is used in sanctioned tournaments in the American Cribbage Congress and consists of four rows of 60 pegs (two rows for each player), no number markings or five point segments, and only a mark indicating the skunk line.  Movement around the board starts on the outside and ends on the inside.  Players start and end in the same hole.
  Another common variation is based on features of the highest-scoring cribbage hand. The board takes the form of the number 29 (the highest possible score), with the pegging rows following the contour of the numbers "2" and "9". The design can sometimes include a background image of three fives and a jack, with the fourth five offset—the "perfect hand" giving that score. The count being 8 combinations of 15 for 16 points, 6 pairs of 2 for 12 points and a matching "nobs" jack (matching the cut card) for 1 totaling 29.
  Each of the four 30-point divisions of the cribbage board (1–30, 31–60, 61–90, and 91–120) is colloquially called a "street".  Being at 15 points would be on first street, being at 59 points would be on second street, etc.
caption: Modern 120-hole board
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