CRIBBAGE (from crib, rack, Ger. Krippc, OBG. krippa, also chripfa: connected with \IIIG. basket, which is probably related to Lat. corbis, basket). A game of cards, which can be played by two, three, or four persons, but is mostly played by two with a pack of fifty-two cards. , %limn four persons are engaged, they take sides. The value of the cards is: face cards ten, ace one, and the rest as marked. The number of cards dealt is usually live. The points are scored on a board, and sixty-one constitutes game. The players cut for deal ; the player who loses the deal takes three points, as a makeweight for the adversary's advantage. Five cards in alternate succession are then dealt, the rest of the pack being placed face downward on the table. The players gather up their five cards, inspect them and select two to place them on the table face down. These cards are called 'the crib,' and become the property of the dealer. The non dealer then cuts the remainder of the pack and the dealer turns up the top card. The play then begins, the player announcing the value of each card as he plays it: thus suppose it is a king he calls 10—the next player says, for example, 8; then another card is played by the first player, and so on until the whole amount reaches 31, or as near it, without exceeding it, as can be ac complished. The details of counting the points
made in play are too intricate to exemplify in a general description. After the play of the hand is completed, each player counts all the fifteens he can by any combination make out of the cards he holds in conjunction with the 'turn up' card. Then the dealer takes up the four cards thrown out for the 'crib' by the two players as al ready mentioned and counts them in the same way in conjunction with the turn up or start card. Each party is entitled, in addition to the points made in play or in crib, to count 'pairs,' 'pairs royal,' 'double pairs royal,' and for 'the knave,' as well as to count sequences—three or more cards following in successive numbers—and flushes, when all the cards in crib are of the same suit. Consult: Cady, Cribbage (New York, 1897) ; 'Aquarius,' Piquet and Cribbage (Lon don, 1883).