h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Cribbage is also played with four players (in two teams) in which case five cards are dealt to each player and only one card from each goes into the crib.

As a result of this in some pubs players deal five cards to each player even in singles games and two cards are dealt "blind" into the crib.

It is also possible to play three handed (there are boards which have a third row of holes to enable this) in which case the players are dealt five cards each and the crib is dealt one card blind to make it up to four)

A friend and I developed an interesting variant a few years back in a moment of sheer boredom. We refer to it as "Anti-Cribbage". The scoring, etc. is identical to standard Cribbage, but the idea is to score as FEW points as possible per hand. 19 hands are highly desirable, and the crib is a distinctly bad thing, typically. It takes a few hands to really get the feel of throwing away fives and fifteens to your opponent's crib, as well as the changed dynamics of cardplay. The advantage to this variant is that it can even be played online, as all of the rules stay the same. Just a warning, a single game of Anti-Cribbage can take an insanely long time, as hands typically average about 3 and cribs about 6-7. Pegging is also drastically reduced.

Your comments?

I have a feeling that I have inadvertently played anticribage on many occasions