Cribbage has a reputation for being complicated. It isn't. It has one odd idea in it — the crib — and once that lands, the rest is arithmetic you already know.
A deck of cards, two players, and a board with holes in it. The board isn't strictly necessary — it's just a way of counting to 121 without arguing — but every cribbage player owns one and will produce it with a flourish. You'll play to 121 points, and points come from two places: laying cards down, and counting your hand afterwards.
Deal six cards each. Now the strange part, and it's the heart of the game: you each throw two cards away, face down, into a fifth hand called the crib. The crib belongs to the dealer, and the dealer scores it at the end as if it were a second hand.
So the discard is a genuine decision, not a formality. On your own deal, throw good cards into the crib — you're going to score them. On the other player's deal, throw them your rubbish, because you're about to hand them points. Two fives together is a lovely thing to have in your own crib and a catastrophe to give away.
The non-dealer cuts the deck and the dealer turns up one card. This is the starter, and it's the most democratic card in the game: it belongs to everybody. It counts in your hand, in their hand, and in the crib.
If the starter is a jack, the dealer immediately pegs two points. This is called his heels, and it's the small tax you pay for not dealing.
Now you take turns laying cards face up in front of you, calling out the running total as you go. Nine. Nineteen. Twenty-four. You must not go over 31.
Points along the way:
Can't play without busting 31? Say "go". Your opponent keeps laying cards if they can, and takes one point for the last card. Then the count resets to zero and you carry on with whatever's left.
Now you pick your four cards back up, add the starter, and count what you've got. The non-dealer counts first, which is not a politeness — it's a rule that decides games, because if you're both close to 121, the first player to count out wins, and the dealer never gets to count at all.
Then the dealer counts their hand. Then the dealer counts the crib.
Scoring the hand is its own subject and it's where most beginners leak points — the double-run trap and the crib flush rule catch nearly everybody. The full scoring guide is here, and it's worth twenty minutes of your life.
First to 121. If you get there while your opponent is still under 91, you've skunked them — thirty-one points behind or worse — and in a proper match that counts as two games. Under 61 is a double skunk, which people talk about for years.
Count your hand before you discard. Not after. Look at your six cards and work out what four of them are actually worth, and what the two you're throwing will do in the crib. It sounds obvious. Almost nobody does it, and it's the whole difference between a player who's learned the rules and a player who's learned the game.
The table here shows you the count for every hand — fifteens, pairs, runs, nobs, broken out — so you can check your own arithmetic against it until you stop needing to.
Six each in the two-player game. You each discard two into the crib, leaving four in hand, and the starter card makes five for counting purposes.
The non-dealer, always. It matters enormously at the end of a close game: if both players would cross 121, whoever counts first wins, and the dealer may never get to count at all. It's the compensation for not having the crib.
Winning while your opponent is still short of 91 points — thirty-one or more behind. In tournament play it counts as two games. Under 61 is a double skunk.