When the store page went up I asked what people wanted from a PC cribbage game. lowball came back more than anything else.
I started with the lessons. Learn > Variants already teaches the family: how the ghost card works, why a partner's crib is your crib, why a nineteen is the dream hand in Lowball. That was the honest first step. You cannot sit down at a real table if you have never seen the rules written down properly.
The second step is today. Three of those variants are now a game you can play, against the computer, from Play > Variants.
The classic two-handed game is not changing. Six cards, two to the crib, first to 121. If you never open this menu, you will not notice it is there.
What this is, and what it is not
These are casual games against the computer. The engine counts every hand. There is no coaching, no Daily, no ranked ladder, and no leaderboard. I am not putting a three-player kitchen-table game on a public board until I am sure the rules and the feel are right.
If your table deals the three-handed crib a different way, tell me. Cribbage has a lot of perfectly legitimate kitchen forms. I would rather hear that now than after a hundred people have learned my version as the only version.
Lowball — first to 121 loses
Same two-handed game you already know. Same deal, same crib, same heels, same Show. One inversion: the first peg into 121 loses.
Every point is forced. A Jack on the cut still lands on the dealer. Last card still pegs. Your hand still counts what it counts. The nineteen you used to groan about is now the best hand at the table, and a pretty double run is a disaster.
The crib still belongs to the dealer, which now means it counts against the dealer. On their deal you send the fives across the table. On yours you starve your own crib and pray for nothing. The computer plays the mirror game too.
3-Hand — you against two computers
Cutthroat. Every seat for themselves, and the first peg home wins alone.
Five cards each, one toss each. Three tosses only make three cards, so one more comes off the deck face-down to finish the crib. That is the ghost card. Nobody has seen all of the crib, including the dealer.
The player left of the dealer cuts and leads. Go drops you out of that count only — the other two keep laying. Last card is still one, or two for a 31. The Show runs left of the dealer, around the table, dealer last, crib last. Your crib only visits you every third deal, so the road to 121 runs leaner than heads-up.
The board has a third street for the extra seat. You, Alley, and Alley II each keep their own pegs.
4-Hand — you and a computer partner
Partnership cribbage. Two teams of two, partners sitting opposite, one shared peg line per team. You sit with a computer partner. The other two seats are computers as well.
Five cards each, one toss each. Four tosses fill the crib. No ghost. The crib belongs to the dealer's team, and the deal rotates left, so it changes teams every hand — the same heartbeat as heads-up, one card at a time.
Play order alternates teams. Sixteen cards in the play. Five hands get counted every deal: four around the table, then the crib. Either partner's count can end the game.
No table talk. Your partner plays its own hand. You cannot peek, you cannot suggest a toss, and the cards are the only signal anyone is allowed to send. When your team deals, feed the crib. When theirs does, balk it. The whole meaning of a five flips on whose deal it is.
Where to find them
Play > Variants.
Pick Lowball, 3-Hand, or 4-Hand.
Pick a difficulty. Every tier plays the real rules; the sharper ones just play them better.
Cut for the deal, then sit down.
The lessons are still in Learn > Variants if you want the write-up before you play, or after you get cleaned out and want to know why.
Go and break them
I am confident in the counting. I am less confident about the feel of a third street, or of a partner that will not talk to you, or of a game where every pretty hand is a problem.
So play a few and tell me. If a Go felt wrong, tell me the count. If the ghost crib at your table is dealt a different way, tell me that. If four-hand is the one you actually wanted all along, I want to hear it.
Thanks, as always, for playing.