What Is the Starter Card in Cribbage?
The starter is the card turned face up after the cut in cribbage: the pone cuts the deck and the dealer flips the top card of the lower packet. At the show it counts as a fifth card with both hands and the crib, and a jack starter scores the dealer two points immediately.
What else is the starter called?
The three main rule authorities manage three names between them for the same card. The American Cribbage Congress writes "starter card" and describes it as the cut card, Bicycle's rules call it the starter, and pagat's rules say the start card. You will sometimes hear "up-card" at the table as well, though none of the three authorities uses that name. Whichever name a rule uses, it means the one card turned face up after the cut.
How is the starter cut?
The starter appears between the discard and the play, in a short fixed procedure:
- Both players put their two discards face down into the crib.
- The pone, the non-dealer, cuts the deck.
- The dealer turns up the top card of the lower packet. That card is the starter.
The roles never swap: the pone always cuts, and the dealer always turns the card. If the card turned up is a jack, the dealer scores before anything else happens, which the last section below covers.
Does the starter count in your hand?
Yes, at the show. The starter counts as a fifth card with the pone's hand, with the dealer's hand, and with the crib, so the same card can score three times in one deal. Fifteens, pairs, and runs all form with the starter exactly as they would with a held card. The starter takes no part in the play, though: nobody plays it to the running count, and its points arrive only when the hands are counted.
The starter's suit does one job the ranks cannot. Four hand cards of a single suit score a four-point flush, or five points when the starter matches them. The crib is stricter: a crib flush exists only as all five cards of one suit, the four crib cards plus the starter, worth five points. The starter's suit therefore decides whether a crib flush is possible at all.
What happens when the starter is a jack?
A jack turned as the starter scores the dealer two points, called his heels, pegged immediately before a single card is played. The suit is irrelevant and only the dealer can claim it. Under American Cribbage Congress rules, the points are lost once the dealer plays a card. A jack held in a hand or the crib that matches the starter's suit is a different point entirely: one for nobs, counted at the show. The same jack never scores both, because heels requires it to be the starter while nobs requires it to be held.
By the Nobs Cribbage team Last reviewed 2026-08-01