Cribbage Scoring, Explained

Every way to score a point in cribbage, worked out on real hands — not just rules prose. If you haven't seen the flow of a full hand yet, start with how to play first.

Card values, quickly

For scoring, ace counts 1, number cards count their face value, and jack/queen/king all count 10. For runs, they rank in normal order: …9, 10, jack, queen, king.

Fifteens

Any combination of two or more cards (from your hand plus the starter) that add up to exactly 15 is worth 2 points — and every valid combination counts separately, not just one per hand.

Pairs

Two cards of the same rank score 2 points. Three of a kind ("pair royal") isn't 2+2+2 — it's every possible pair within the three counted separately, which works out to 6 points. Four of a kind ("double pair royal") is 12 points.

Runs

Three or more cards that form a consecutive sequence of ranks — regardless of suit, and regardless of the order they were dealt in — score 1 point per card. If a rank is duplicated (say, two 7s inside a run of 5-6-7-8), that's a double run: both versions of the run count separately.

Worked example — a full hand counted

Hand: 5♦ 6♣ 7♥ 7♠ · Starter: 8♦

Fifteens: 7♥+8♦ and 7♠+8♦ each make 15 → 2 combinations × 2pts = 4 points.
Pair: the two 7s → 2 points.
Runs: 5-6-7-8 is a run of four, and with two different 7s in hand it counts twice (a double run) → 2 × 4pts = 8 points.

Total: 14 points.

Flushes

If every card in a hand shares the same suit, that's a flush. This is the single most common point of confusion in cribbage, because the rule is different depending on where the cards are:

In your own hand, a flush counts as soon as your 4 hand cards share a suit — the starter card doesn't need to match. That's 4 points (5 if the starter happens to match too). In the crib, though, a flush only counts if all 5 cards — your 4 discards plus the starter — share a suit. If the starter doesn't match, the crib scores nothing for a flush at all, even with 4 matching cards.

Worked example — flush

Hand: 2♦ 6♦ 9♦ K♦ · Starter: 7♠

Counted as your own hand: 4 points for the flush (the starter's suit doesn't matter here). Counted as the crib instead, with that same starter: 0 points for the flush — the 7♠ breaks it, because a crib flush needs the starter to match too.

Nobs (his nobs)

If you're holding the jack of the same suit as the starter card, that's worth 1 point — called "his nobs." Don't confuse it with "his heels" below, which is a different jack-related score entirely.

His heels

This one isn't counted in anyone's hand — it happens at the cut. If the starter card turned up is itself a jack, the dealer immediately scores 2 points, before play even begins.

Go / last card

During pegging, if you can't play a card without pushing the count past 31, you say "go." Your opponent scores 1 point for the go (or 2 points instead if they can play a card that lands exactly on 31). Once neither player can play, whoever played the last card scores 1 point for it, and the count resets to 0 to continue the round.

Counting order at the show

After all cards are played, hands are counted in a fixed order: starting with the player to the dealer's left and going around the table, with the dealer's own hand counted last — and the crib, which only ever belongs to the dealer, counted dead last of all. Counting last is a real edge, since a hand already past 121 by the time it's your turn wins outright regardless of what's still left to count.

The maximum hand: 29 points

The highest score any single hand can reach is 29, and it only happens one specific way:

Worked example — the perfect 29

Hand: 5♠ 5♣ 5♦ J♥ · Starter: 5♥

Fifteens: each of the four 5s pairs with the jack (worth 10) to make 15 → 4 combinations, plus every group of three 5s also makes 15 → 4 more combinations. That's 8 combinations × 2pts = 16 points.
Pairs: four 5s means every pair among them counts — 6 combinations × 2pts = 12 points.
Nobs: the jack matches the starter's suit (hearts) → 1 point.

Total: 29 points — the maximum possible from a single hand, and only achievable holding three 5s and the jack matching whichever suit the fourth 5 turns up in as the starter.