Cribbage Odds and Statistics: Exact Data from 12,994,800 Hands

Cribbage odds at a glance

The hand odds and statistics on this page are exact calculations. The full-game numbers come from our 25,000-game simulation, so those should be treated as simulation results.

* In standard 2-player, 6 card cribbage. These odds assume you keep the cards needed for the target score, prioritizing a possible 29 over 28.

What is the average cribbage hand score?

The average random cribbage hand scores 4.7692 points. That number comes from looking at every possible four-card hand with every possible starter card. If the same cards are scored as a crib, the average falls slightly to 4.7348 points.

The 4.7692 figure is the average for four random cards and a random starter.

In a real game, you choose which four cards to keep and which two to discard. Good players naturally keep cards that are more likely to score well.

A player's actual kept hand should average more than 4.7692 points because players get to choose the best four cards from six.

We don't have an exact calculation for the average score of an optimally chosen four-card keep, so we do not publish one here.

Why does the crib average slightly less?

The difference comes entirely from the flush rule. When scoring the crib, all four cards plus the starter card have to be the same suit for it to be considered a flush. When scoring a regular hand, only the four cards in the player's hand need to be the same suit.

That one rule lowers the average by 0.0343 points.

What is the most common number of points scored in a cribbage hand?

Four points is the most common score for a random cribbage hand.

A random hand scores:

• 4 points 21.98% of the time.
• 2 points 21.65% of the time.
• 0 points 7.76% of the time.

Overall, 56.05% of random hands score 4 points or fewer.

Only 18.95% score 8 points or more, and just 0.67% score 16 points or more.

Odd scores are also less common. Only 19.31% of hands have an odd score.

That is because many common ways to score in cribbage, such as pairs and fifteens, are worth an even number of points. Odd totals usually need nobs, a five-card flush, or a run worth an odd number of points.

What are the odds of getting a 29 hand in cribbage?

In standard, six-card cribbage, the odds of a 29 hand are exactly 1 in 216,580. This assumes you always keep three 5s and the jack matching the missing 5's suit when dealt them. The fourth 5 must be outside your six dealt cards and become the starter. If dealt several jacks, keep the matching one.

A 29 is the highest possible hand in cribbage.

The American Cribbage Congress also publishes the 216,580 to 1 figure. Nobs Cribbage independently calculated the same number from the full set of possible deals.

What are the odds of getting a 28 hand in cribbage?

The odds of getting a 28-point hand in cribbage are approximately 1 in 15,028. This is for standard, six-card cribbage. The calculation assumes you keep cards that can make 28, but prioritize a possible 29 when dealt its matching jack. This makes the 28 hand 14.4 times more common than a 29-point hand.

There are two main routes for getting a 28-point hand in cribbage.

In the first way, you keep three 5s and a 10-value card, then cut the missing 5. We exclude deals containing the jack matching that 5's suit, because our assumed policy keeps it for a possible 29. This leaves 45,020 deal-and-cut outcomes.

In the second, you keep all four 5s, then cut any 10-value card. This accounts for another 17,296 deal-and-cut outcomes.

Together, the two routes give 62,316 outcomes out of 936,491,920 possible six-card deals with a designated starter. The reciprocal probability is 15,028.1135, rounded to 15,028.

For the non-dealer, the Nobs expected-points model prefers a keep that can make 28 in each of these deals. It ranks keeps by expected hand points minus an estimate of the opponent's crib score. Game strategy also depends on pegging and board position. As dealer, the Nobs engine sometimes prefers a different keep and puts a 5 into its own crib instead.

Which cribbage hands score 24 points?

There are exactly nine rank combinations of hand plus starter that will net you a 24-point cribbage hand.

A 24 appears 3,680 times in the 12,994,800 possible random hand-and-starter combinations.

That works out to about 1 in 3,531 hands.

Which cribbage hand scores are impossible?

You can't score exactly 19, 25, 26, or 27 points in a cribbage hand.

None of those scores appears anywhere in our full set of 12,994,800 possible hand-and-starter combinations.

This is also why cribbage players sometimes jokingly call a zero-point hand a "19 hand."

Does being the first dealer have an advantage in cribbage?

Yes. In our 25,000-game simulation, the player who dealt first won 56.40% of games. The 95% Wilson confidence interval was 55.78% to 57.01%. This section is based on simulated games, not every possible game of cribbage.

ONYX, the strongest of the three bots in the browser game, played against itself for all 25,000 games using a fixed seed so the same simulation can be run again.

Bot-versus-bot play is useful for studying skilled play, but it should not be treated as an exact measurement of all human cribbage games.

How often does a skunk happen in cribbage?

A skunk (including a double skunk) happened in 13.80% of the games in our 25,000-game simulation. The 95% Wilson confidence interval was 13.38% to 14.24%.

A double skunk was much less common. Double skunks happened in only 0.12% of games, with a 95% Wilson confidence interval of 0.09% to 0.18%.

The double-skunk rate is part of the overall skunk rate, so the two percentages should not be added together.

How long does an average cribbage game last?

The average game in our simulation lasted 8.98 hands. Nine hands was the most common game length, happening in 44.13% of games.

The shortest game lasted 5 hands. The longest lasted 13 hands.

One detail is important when reading these numbers: a cribbage game ends as soon as someone reaches 121.

How many points do the dealer and non-dealer score per hand?

In our simulation, the dealer averaged 15.1723 total points per hand and the non-dealer averaged 9.9816.

These averages come from all 224,426 hands in the 25,000-game simulation, including final hands that ended as soon as a player reached 121.

The non-dealer is also called the pone. The pone's regular hand averaged 7.8042 points, compared with 7.4211 for the dealer.

The dealer may give up hand-value in order to improve their crib. The counting order also matters, the non-dealer (or pone) counts first and can win before the dealer's hand is even counted. These averages include hands that ended counting early.

How did Nobs Cribbage calculate these odds?

Nobs Cribbage calculated the exact hand statistics by scoring all 12,994,800 possible four-card hand and starter combinations.

We did not estimate the hand distribution from a sample. We checked every combination. We also ran the full calculation through the Nobs engine scorer and its calculator port:

• The scorer used by the Nobs game engine.
• A port of that scorer used by the Nobs cribbage hand calculator.

Both scorers evaluated every combination using normal hand rules and crib rules. If they disagreed on even one combination, the generator stopped. The final data was only produced after both scorers agreed on every hand. The exact engine build is also pinned by hash. The calculator adapts the engine's scoring code, so this agreement checks consistency between the two implementations.

The results match the published record. Our hand distribution reproduces OEIS sequence A066354 term for term, and our crib distribution reproduces A346266. MathWorld publishes the different A143133 table, which averages 4.7249. Our separate enumeration with flush scoring disabled reproduces that table term for term.

About this research

The data on this page was produced by the Nobs editorial team for our cribbage game, strategy tools, and hand calculator.

Every exact statistic is stored in a committed data file produced by the generator script in the Nobs site repository. The generator checks that the engine scorer and its calculator port agree before writing the final data.

The full data set is published at /odds/odds.json. The published counts let readers recompute the means and percentages and compare each score with the OEIS sequences. To cite this page, use: Nobs Cribbage, "Cribbage Odds and Statistics", nobscribbage.com/odds/.

More cribbage odds and strategy

Want to go deeper? Read more about:

• The 29 hand and why it is so rare
• The best possible cribbage hands
• Why a 19-point hand is impossible
• The dealer advantage in cribbage
• What to discard in cribbage
• Cribbage pegging strategy
• Cribbage board position
• Cribbage endgame strategy