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Nineteen hands and one for his nob

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    Nineteen hands and one for his nob

    Was on holiday last week and the children found a board with tracks of holes, and with some little pegs and a pack of cards in it. They asked what it was and I told them it was for a game called Cribbage but that I had no idea how to play it.

    So this week I did a bit of googling and download a Cribbage app to play on my phone. What a great little game it is! Naturally I've plenty of room for improvement though. Any other players here?

    #2
    I've played it literally a handful of times, and always quite enjoyed it despite being a complete novice.

    One of my best friends grew up in a family where they were apparently always playing games, particularly card games, so she knows simply oodles of them and occasionally would teach me one when we lived together. Since I didn't have anything like this type of background they were virtually all new on me, ruleswise, so I tended to pick things up OK but would have no idea of the subtleties – and then would never be able to remember which game was which if ever we came back to one at a later date. Cribbage at least always stood out because it's 'the one with the little wooden peg-board', and I seem to recall I've always found it very straightforwardly playable.

    Was it one of the 'normal', simple boards like this, by the way?


    Just googling, there seem to be some much more complicated-looking versions out there:



    Speaking of games with "a board with tracks of holes, and with some little pegs", have you introduced your kids to the classic Mastermind yet Kev? That was one of the games I would tend to encounter in holiday cottages various summers when growing up, and it always threw me at first because I couldn't for the life of me see what it had to do with the TV quiz Mastermind – of course, there is no connection. They might be a bit young for the game yet, but it's a great one to test the mind's ability to work things out logically.

    Comment


      #3
      Heh, just discovered a great article from 2003, when they brought together the two people on the original box cover of Mastermind for the first time in 30 years, and recreated the shot:



      Marvellously, too, her married name turns out to be Masters.

      Comment


        #4
        Fabulous stuff, the bloke has aged rather well, though perhaps he looked prematurely senior back in the 70s. I haven't got my juniors onto Mastermind yet, but will probably pick it up next time I see it in a charity shop. We had it at home when I was younger but I haven't played it in years.

        The cribbage board in the cottage was this one, which seems to be fairly common. The 29 denotes the highest possible hand (cut card being 5 with the player holding 555J, where the J is of the same suit as the start card for that extra 'one for his nob').



        I need to commit more card games to memory, I think. You can muster so much entertainment from something as simple as a deck of playing cards.

        Comment


          #5
          My parents have that board. In fact, they had it in the cottage we all stayed in recently and I'm now wondering whether they left it behind and you were the next guests, Kev.

          I've played it a lot with them in the past and more recently have played a little with my wife and children. It's a great game and saying "one for his nob" never stops being amusing. Unfortunately, I am apparently incapable of remembering how to play it, like all card games, so the first hour of any session involves reacquainting myself with the rules.

          Comment


            #6
            Ha, well, I did find it odd that the cribbage board and cards was the only game in the cottage - normally an owner provides a selection or none at all. FWIW we were up by the Teifi Valley in mid-west Wales.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
              Was on holiday last week and the children found a board with tracks of holes, and with some little pegs and a pack of cards in it. They asked what it was and I told them it was for a game called Cribbage but that I had no idea how to play it.

              So this week I did a bit of googling and download a Cribbage app to play on my phone. What a great little game it is! Naturally I've plenty of room for improvement though. Any other players here?
              Me! Me!

              (But only in the wild, mind you.)

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
                Fabulous stuff, the bloke has aged rather well, though perhaps he looked prematurely senior back in the 70s. I haven't got my juniors onto Mastermind yet, but will probably pick it up next time I see it in a charity shop. We had it at home when I was younger but I haven't played it in years.

                The cribbage board in the cottage was this one, which seems to be fairly common. The 29 denotes the highest possible hand (cut card being 5 with the player holding 555J, where the J is of the same suit as the start card for that extra 'one for his nob').



                I need to commit more card games to memory, I think. You can muster so much entertainment from something as simple as a deck of playing cards.
                Why are there three tracks, rather than two?

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
                  Was on holiday last week and the children found a board with tracks of holes, and with some little pegs and a pack of cards in it. They asked what it was and I told them it was for a game called Cribbage but that I had no idea how to play it.

                  So this week I did a bit of googling and download a Cribbage app to play on my phone. What a great little game it is! Naturally I've plenty of room for improvement though. Any other players here?
                  Used to score doms too.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Various Artist View Post
                    I've played it literally a handful of times, and always quite enjoyed it despite being a complete novice.

                    One of my best friends grew up in a family where they were apparently always playing games, particularly card games, so she knows simply oodles of them and occasionally would teach me one when we lived together. Since I didn't have anything like this type of background they were virtually all new on me, ruleswise, so I tended to pick things up OK but would have no idea of the subtleties – and then would never be able to remember which game was which if ever we came back to one at a later date. Cribbage at least always stood out because it's 'the one with the little wooden peg-board', and I seem to recall I've always found it very straightforwardly playable.

                    Was it one of the 'normal', simple boards like this, by the way?


                    Just googling, there seem to be some much more complicated-looking versions out there:



                    Speaking of games with "a board with tracks of holes, and with some little pegs", have you introduced your kids to the classic Mastermind yet Kev? That was one of the games I would tend to encounter in holiday cottages various summers when growing up, and it always threw me at first because I couldn't for the life of me see what it had to do with the TV quiz Mastermind – of course, there is no connection. They might be a bit young for the game yet, but it's a great one to test the mind's ability to work things out logically.

                    But of course, with the original set, no blanks, and no repeats you can always solve it in four moves.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      I used to play back in the day, I was taught by my Grandad. We used to play down the pub when I took him out on a Sunday against a couple of other oldies for 10p a hole.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
                        Ha, well, I did find it odd that the cribbage board and cards was the only game in the cottage - normally an owner provides a selection or none at all. FWIW we were up by the Teifi Valley in mid-west Wales.
                        Not the same board, then. We didn't venture outside of Norfolk.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by Various Artist View Post
                          Speaking of games with "a board with tracks of holes, and with some little pegs", have you introduced your kids to the classic Mastermind yet Kev? That was one of the games I would tend to encounter in holiday cottages various summers when growing up, and it always threw me at first because I couldn't for the life of me see what it had to do with the TV quiz Mastermind – of course, there is no connection.
                          I genuinely had the other way round experience - I used to play this with my dad when I was about 4 or 5, then one day on reading the TV guide I noticed the game was televised!

                          The version we played had more holes and a slightly different box:

                          Comment


                            #14
                            I suspect kids might be quite good at mastermind as it seems to be the basis for a staggeringly high proportion of puzzles in computer games.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              My wife's Grampy offered to teach me Cribbage as all her side of the family love the game. It was amazing how many rules he forgot to tell me until halfway through when he suddenly would score points for something random.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Originally posted by Various Artist View Post
                                Speaking of games with "a board with tracks of holes, and with some little pegs", have you introduced your kids to the classic Mastermind yet Kev? That was one of the games I would tend to encounter in holiday cottages various summers when growing up
                                Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
                                FWIW we were up by the Teifi Valley in mid-west Wales.
                                Heh, that was the broad area I used to be on summer holidays when I was 8, 9, 10. You might not have been left a Mastermind set behind by HO's family, but I might have encountered the game in the same cottage.

                                Originally posted by Crystal Staples View Post
                                The version we played had more holes and a slightly different box:

                                That's so weird, how the picture's been recreated almost perfectly but with different – presumably more 'deluxe' – models. It's weirder still for looking like a publicity shot from The Apprentice only 30 years too early, as the bloke there looks freakily like Alan Sugar from this angle.

                                I think I encountered that version in a summer holiday cottage in Sussex in 1998, where the owners were clearly hardcore gameplayers as all the board games we found were in these sorts of 'advanced' editions. There was a Trivial Pursuit in some super-hard variant – and a Cluedo with extra rooms in the mansion, three extra 'colours' as player characters, and you could go outside the house too to collect extra token things from the garden that affected the gameplay. Great fun, but I've never encountered it anywhere else since.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
                                  Was on holiday last week and the children found a board with tracks of holes, and with some little pegs and a pack of cards in it. They asked what it was and I told them it was for a game called Cribbage but that I had no idea how to play it.

                                  So this week I did a bit of googling and download a Cribbage app to play on my phone. What a great little game it is! Naturally I've plenty of room for improvement though. Any other players here?

                                  applause for the thread title btw.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    I love cribbage - still keep my hand in on long flights with a Crib app on my Kindle. I wish Carol Ann Duffy would do to Cribbage what she did to the Shipping Forecast, and write a a poem around the rhythms of scoring.

                                    Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
                                    Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

                                    Fifteen two, fifteen four, one for his nob
                                    three for the run, and something that ends in 'ob'

                                    You know - something like that.

                                    Last edited by Vicarious Thrillseeker; 24-05-2019, 17:15.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Crystal Staples View Post

                                      I genuinely had the other way round experience - I used to play this with my dad when I was about 4 or 5, then one day on reading the TV guide I noticed the game was televised!

                                      The version we played had more holes and a slightly different box:

                                      Has anyone solved this one yet?


                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        I've got Bl, R, O, Y, B?

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Anyhoo


                                          Next up, Rubik's Cube by way of "Instant Insanity"...

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Never finished one beyond two rows. Apart from dismantling it and putting it back together.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by Sits View Post
                                              Never finished one beyond two rows. Apart from dismantling it and putting it back together.
                                              More of a corners man in the early days of solving it

                                              Went on to rows, but wouldn't have a clue nowadays.

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