Cribbage
Cribbage, or crib, is a card game, traditionally for two players, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points. It can be adapted for three or four players. Cribbage has several distinctive features: the cribbage board used for score-keeping; the crib, box, or kitty (in parts of Canada and New England); two distinct scoring stages; and a unique scoring system, including points for groups of cards that total 15. It has been characterized as "Britain's national card game" and the only one legally playable in licensed pubs and clubs without requiring local authority permission. The game has relatively few rules yet yields endless subtleties during play, which accounts for its ongoing appeal and popularity. Tactical play varies, depending on which cards one's opponent has played, how many cards in the remaining pack will help the hand one holds, and what one's position on the board is. A game may be decided by a single point, and the edge often goes to an experienced player who utilizes strategy, including calculating odds and making decisions based on the relative positions of players on the board. Both cribbage and its close relative costly colours are descended from the old English card game of noddy. Cribbage added the distinctive feature of a crib and changed the scoring system for points, whereas costly colours added more combinations but retained the original noddy scoring scheme. History According to John Aubrey, cribbage was created by the English poet Sir John Suckling in the early 17th century, as a derivation of the game "noddy". While noddy has become a historical, rarely-played game, cribbage has continued as a popular game in the English-speaking world. The objective of the game is to be the first player to score a target number of points, typically 61 or 121. Points are scored for showing certain jacks, playing the last card, for card combinations adding up to 15 or 31, and for pairs, triples, quadruples (cards of the same rank), runs (sequences of consecutive numbers irrespective of suit) and flushes (sets of cards of the same suit). The earliest rules were published in England and appear in Cotgrave (1662) and are soon followed by Willughby (1672) and Cotton (1674). The continuing popularity of cribbage is due in some part to the influence of the Victorian novelist Charles Dickens, who depicted the game in his novel The Old Curiosity Shop. Cribbage was popular among prospectors in the American West, and the small mining town of Nelson, Montana, to this day has a sign proclaiming it the "Cribbage Capital of the World". Cribbage is played by American submariners, serving as a common pastime. The wardroom of the oldest active submarine in the United States Pacific Fleet carries on board the personal cribbage board of World War II submarine commander and Medal of Honor recipient Rear Admiral Dick O'Kane, and upon the boat's decommissioning, the board is transferred to the next oldest boat. Rules Play proceeds through a succession of "hands", each hand