Flip-Flop Cribbage

Cribbage where you mix up cards face up and face down

Feedback and suggest improvements are welcome! I really enjoyed this. I haven't played enough to develop a go-to strategy, but it was nice to mix it up. Here are the rules:

The Deal

Mix cards up so that some are face up and others face down. There does not need to be an even number of face up and face down cards. Once shuffled, the player next to the dealer can choose to flip the entire deck reversing the orientation of all cards. Players pick up their cards directly to them. The side facing them once dealt should be the side they look at. Do not flip all cards to you – the point is that you don’t know some of your cards. Theoretically, all players could know all cards in each other’s hand if they pay attention during the deal.

The Crib

Players select the cards they wish to lay away into the crib hand, but do so simultaneously to not give an advantage as to know which cards are already in the crib. You can lay away cards that are facing away or toward you.

The Cut

Player left of the dealer cuts normally, but if the cut card is face up, the cut card is turned back over and no one gets to use it when scoring, even if the card was a Jack. If the cut card is face down as in a normal Cribbage game, flip it and use it normally.

The Play

This phase scores normally, but again, players may not know which cards they are playing. The key difference is when a player cannot play a card facing them without exceeding 31, and that player has cards facing away from them, they must attempt to play one of the cards facing away from them. If the card played would exceed 31, that card is burned and is out of play for the rest of the phase. If all players burn or say “Go,” then the “one for last” point is awarded to the player that played the last card, even if that player burns one of their cards. If a player burns a card but another card is played after them, and the player that burned has other cards facing away from them, they must attempt playing again.

Pegging

Once The Play is over, all cards are returned to the player to score normally, where the player looks at all their cards.

Recently I discovered my great grandparents used to play 2 games of Cribbage daily. It must run inthe family as hubby and I do the same 😊