Cribbage · Play online
Play cribbage online, free, in your browser
The game above is free two-handed cribbage against a computer opponent, played in your browser with nothing to install and no account to make. Pick one of the three opponents to start, and play carries on until one side reaches 121 and wins on the spot.
How does a hand of cribbage work?
Each hand starts with six cards apiece. You keep four and send two face down to the crib, an extra four-card hand that belongs to whoever dealt and is counted last. After the discards, the non-dealer cuts the deck and the dealer turns up the starter card. A jack there pegs the dealer two immediately, a score called his heels.
Next comes the play to 31. The non-dealer leads a card and the two sides alternate, keeping a running count in which face cards are worth ten, aces one, and the rest their number. The count may never pass 31: when you cannot play without breaking that limit you say go, and your opponent keeps playing while they legally can. Whoever lays the last card of a sequence pegs one, or two for hitting 31 exactly, and then the count resets to zero.
When the cards run out, the hands are counted in a fixed order: non-dealer first, then dealer, then the crib, each using the starter as a fifth card. That order decides close games. The first side to reach or pass 121 wins at that instant, even partway through the counting. Near the end, that means the non-dealer's hand can win before the dealer's hand and crib are ever counted.
Where do the points come from?
Cribbage scores from a short list of combinations, joined by the go, 31 and last-card pegs from the play and by the dealer's two for his heels.
| Combination | Points |
|---|---|
| Each distinct combination of cards adding to fifteen | 2 |
| A pair, rising to 6 for three of a kind and 12 for four | 2 |
| A run of three or more consecutive ranks, suits irrelevant | 1 per card |
| A flush, four hand cards of one suit, five if the starter matches | 4 or 5 |
| His nobs, a jack matching the starter's suit | 1 |
Three of the five combinations also score during the play, pegged the moment they happen. Bringing the count to exactly 15 pegs two. Pairing the card just played pegs two, rising to six and twelve when a third and fourth of the rank follow immediately. Runs peg one per card whenever three or more consecutive ranks fall with no other card between them, in whatever order they land.
At the show, every combination hiding in your four cards plus the starter counts, and one card can work in several at once. The flush and his nobs score only there, and in the crib the flush needs all five cards, the four thrown in plus the starter, in one suit.
Who are the three opponents?
Pip plays easy, Tessa plays medium, and Judy plays hard. They are not stand-ins written for a web page: all three are named opponents from the Nobs app, running the app's own engine with their exact playing profiles. Every one of them is dealt from the same fair, full-deck shuffle, seeded from your browser's cryptographic random source. A harder opponent means better decisions, never better cards.
If Judy stops giving you trouble, the app she comes from goes further: sixteen opponents, with every game graded. The Nobs beta is open on iPhone through TestFlight.
Common questions
Is the game free?
Yes: the whole game is free, with no account and no sign-up standing between you and the deal.
Does anything get saved?
No: the game lives in your browser's memory, so a reload ends it and nothing about your play is stored. The one thing the page remembers is whether you turned the sound off.
Does this game play muggins?
No, because there is nothing for muggins to do. Muggins is an optional rule for claiming points an opponent failed to count, and this game scores every hand in full automatically. Playing without it is standard cribbage, not a variant.
Can you play on a phone?
Yes: the game runs in the browser on desktop, tablet and phone, and nothing installs on any of them.
Can you get skunked?
You can. Lose short of 91 and you have been skunked; lose short of 61 and it is a double skunk. The end-of-game screen will say so.
Where can you learn more?
Three pages on this site cover the parts of cribbage that take the longest to pick up.
- How to play cribbage walks through a whole hand at a gentler pace, from the deal to the count.
- The hand calculator scores any four cards plus a starter and shows every fifteen, pair, run, flush and nobs on its own line.
- The cribbage glossary defines the words the game uses at the table, from his heels to the stinkhole.
By the Nobs Cribbage team Last reviewed 2026-08-14