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Fact-check log

Every claim used on this site was checked against a cached excerpt on 15 November 2026. The American Cribbage Congress wording follows the 2025 official tournament rules, rules 1.1 to 1.7. The history wording follows David Parlett’s Encyclopaedia Britannica article and the public-domain 1911 Britannica article. Britannica’s AI-generated “Top Questions” boxes were not used as a source.

Key	Claim	Source
acc-121	The object of the American Cribbage Congress tournament game is to be the first player to score 121 points.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-pack	The ACC game uses a standard pack of 52 playing cards; jokers are discarded, and the four suits are considered equal.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-values	In the ACC ranking, king is high and ace is low. Kings, queens, jacks and tens each count ten; other cards count their pip value, and the ace counts one.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-longboard	ACC-sanctioned and satellite tournaments must be played on “long boards”: sixty holes up and sixty holes down.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-six	In the two-player game the dealer, after a mandatory cut by the pone (the non-dealer), deals one card alternately to each player, beginning with the pone, until each has six cards.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-crib	Each player discards two cards to form the crib, which belongs to the dealer.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-starter	The pone then cuts the remainder of the pack to select a starter card, which is used in counting the value of each player’s hand and the crib.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-play	The players alternately play one card at a time, starting with the pone, and announce the cumulative value as each card is played.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-go	When a player cannot play a card without the cumulative total exceeding 31, that player calls “go,” and the opponent continues to play all cards possible without exceeding 31.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-show	When all the cards have been played, the pone counts and pegs the pone’s hand first. The dealer then does the same for the dealer’s hand, and then for the crib.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-heels	A jack turned as the starter card counts two points for the dealer. The ACC also calls this “his heels,” and sometimes “nibs.”	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-nobs	A jack of the same suit as the starter card, in either the hand or the crib, counts one point. The ACC calls this “nobs.”	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-pairs	In the play and in the hand or crib, a pair scores 2, three of a kind scores 6, and four of a kind scores 12.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-runs	A straight, or run, of three or more cards scores one point per card, both during the play and in the hand or crib.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-15s	In the hand or crib, any combination of cards that sums to 15 scores two points. During the play, reaching a 15-count exactly also scores two.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-31	During the play, reaching a 31-count exactly scores two points. The final card played, without reaching 31, scores one. Only one of those two scores can be earned with the play of a single card.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-flush-hand	A four-card flush counts four points only in the hand, not in the crib. A five-card flush, including the starter, counts five in the hand or the crib.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-flush-def	The ACC definition is the same point in other words: four cards of the same suit held in the hand count four points; five cards of the same suit, including the starter, count five in the hand or crib.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-dead	The dead hole is hole number 120, one point short of the game hole. The game hole is hole number 121.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-skunk	To skunk an opponent is to win by 31 or more points. The stink hole is hole number 90, one point short of avoiding a skunk.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-street	On the ACC board, a street is a stretch of 30 holes: first street is holes 1–30, second 31–60, third 61–90, and fourth 91–120.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-peg	A player pegs by advancing the rear peg in front of the front peg. The board shows both the score accumulated so far and the size of the latest increment.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
acc-pone	The pone is the opponent of the player who deals.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
brit-what	Cribbage is a card game in which the object is to form counting combinations that traditionally are scored by moving pegs on a special cribbage board.	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-who	The game is usually played by two, with a popular variant played by four and, occasionally, by three.	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-suckling	The game is commonly credited to the 17th-century English poet Sir John Suckling, but it clearly developed from an earlier game called noddy, which also used a special scoring board.	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-cotton	A related but more complicated game, costly colours, is described by Charles Cotton in The Compleat Gamester (1674).	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-board-not	Many descriptions have called the cribbage board indispensable. Encyclopaedia Britannica, in David Parlett’s article, says that it is not: the score can be kept with pencil and paper, or with chips or other counters.	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-six	Almost the only big change from the original rules is that, in the United States and in the British two-player domestic game, each player is dealt six cards instead of the original five.	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-five	Five-card cribbage remains popular in British club and tournament play, commonly as a four-hand partnership game, where five cards is the norm.	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-holes	Parlett describes the usual board as a tablet with 60 counting holes, in two rows of 30, for each player, plus one game hole for each. Game is 121 — twice around the board plus one for the game hole — or 61 in the less frequently played game of once around. Boards with 180 holes, for play to 181, also exist.	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-heels	If the starter is a jack, the dealer immediately scores two points, called “two for his heels.”	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-nob	The jack of the starter’s suit — formerly called “knave noddy,” a link with the earlier game — is worth one point to the holder for “his nob,” and is not scored until the showing.	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-flush-crib	In the showing, a four-card flush scores four, or five if the starter is the same suit, but only a five-card flush matching the starter counts in the crib.	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-lurch	If the loser has not already counted at least 61 (or 31 in a short game) when the winner counts out, the loser is “lurched,” or “left in the lurch,” and, if the play is for stakes, loses doubly.	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
brit-muggins	Some play that if a player fails to claim a full score, the opponent may call “Muggins” and score the overlooked points. The ACC treats muggins as a tournament-director option, which must be listed on the tournament flyer and announced before play.	David Parlett, “cribbage,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, article retrieved 15 November 2026
acc-muggins	Under the ACC rules, muggins — scoring points an opponent fails to peg — is played only at the option of the tournament director, and must be listed on the tournament flyer and announced before play.	American Cribbage Congress, Official Tournament Rules, 2025 edition, rules 1.1–1.7
brit1911-aubrey	The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, following John Aubrey’s Brief Lives, says cribbage was invented by Sir John Suckling (1609–1642), and that the game seems to be an improved form of noddy.	Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), “Cribbage” (public domain)
brit1911-29	The 1911 Britannica gives the highest possible score in hand as 29: three fives and a knave, with a five of the same suit as the knave turned up.	Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), “Cribbage” (public domain)
brit1911-five	The 1911 Britannica records that two-handed five-card cribbage was formerly considered the more scientific game, but that this verdict had by then been reversed in favour of the six-card game, in which both hands and the crib contain four cards and 121 holes are scored. In the two-handed five-card game, the non-dealer scores three holes, called “three for last,” which is not part of the six-card game.	Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), “Cribbage” (public domain)