Cribbage

Playing online Cribbage on a casino site is easy. The simple goal is to be the first player to get pegs around the board and into the pegging-out hole. In other words, the first player to score 121 points. Cribbage is played with a 52-card deck.

How to Play Six Card Cribbage

The players cut the deck to determine who will deal first; the lowest card wins. For two player, or six card cribbage, the dealer shuffles the cards and deals out six cards each. The role of dealer rotates between players after each hand is played and scored.
The players discard two cards each, faced down, to a pile known as the crib or kitty. The online dealer will later count the value of these cards and take the points as well as the point in her hand.
After the deal and discard the opponent cuts the deck, and the dealer flips over the first card in the cut. This card is placed face up, on the top of the deck. If it is a Jack, the dealer gets two points.
The opponent plays first, placing of her four cards face up. The dealer plays a card next, in a separate pile, and announces the total value of the two cards. Play continues until the total value reaches exactly 31 points. The player to reach 31 first takes two points, and says “31 for two.”
If the neither player can play, the cards are flipped over and whoever last played, says “point for the last” and takes one point. Play continues until both players have used all of their cards.
Each player then counts the score of the four cards in her hand plus the card on the deck. The dealer’s opponent counts first.

Cribbage Rules and Pegging

When a player plays a card, they must clearly state the value of the card. All face cards are worth ten, the ace is worth one and the rest are worth their stated value. When counting cards in hand, players must show their cards. The order of recording scores in hand is: opponent’s, dealer’s, dealer’s crib.

Two pegs record the score for each player. The rear peg shows the position from the last move; the front peg shows the current score. While playing, there are many ways of scoring to keep track of, including the following scoring chances:

The person who plays a card which brings the total to 15, gets two points.
If anyone plays a card that can be counted in a run of three cards, they get three points.
For runs longer than three, the player gets an extra point for each extra card in the run.
The person who plays a card of the same type as the previous one, gets two points.
The person who plays a third card of the same type gets six points
If anyone lays down a fourth card of the same type, they get twelve points.

Cribbage Rules and Scoring

The highest possible score in one hand is 29 points. When tallying the scores at the end of play, as well as the value of the crib, the following point system is used:

Any combination of cards that adds up to fifteen counts for two points.
A pair, three-of-a-kind and four-of-a-kind count as two, six or 12 points.
A point for each card in a run.
If a player has a jack of the same suit as the turned-up card, she gets one point.

When four or five cards are the same suit, a point is counted for each card. A four-point score is only counted from cards from the hand. The turned-up card on the top of the deck can only be used if it is a five card flush. Visit this site to know more about online Cribbage.

Contract Bridge

The first steps to learn online contract bridge is to familiarize oneself with the diverse features of the game – suits/cards, bidding, game-play, scoring, etc. – coupled with the various terms typically associated with these features. While acquiring knowledge through the length and breadth of contract bridge could be a long drawn affair, a beginner must have a rudimentary knowledge covering all aspects of the game.

Card Deck Used for Contract Bridge

Contract bridge is played with the traditional western playing cards, the 52-cards type of deck. In fact, two such decks are normally used for handiness and speed.

The deck has four suits with their own individual symbols. The colored suits, in order of ranking, are Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs.

Each of the four suits consists of 13 cards each, starting with the Ace (abbreviated as A, the highest card in any suit), and followed by King (K), Queen (Q), Jack (J), 10, 9…through 2 (known as deuce, the lowest card in a suit). It can be seen here that unlike some of the other card games, the highest ranking card in a contract bridge suit is the Ace.

Specific holding and distribution of cards contribute differently toward evaluation of individual hands during bidding. Possession of specific sets of top cards also help a partnership in adding to their score above the line.

Characteristics of Trump Suits vis-à-vis Contract Bridge

As regards symbols and colors of the four suits, there is no change from the traditional deck of cards. Spades and Clubs are black colored whereas the Hearts and Diamonds are red.

in the light of their higher rankings, Spades and Hearts are classified as major suits In contract bridge. The lower ranked Diamonds and Clubs are known as minor suits.

Any of the above suits can be assigned the status of trump in contract bridge during game-play – the trump suit being ranked higher than the other three non-trump suits. Except for this, the ranking has no other role during game-play with all the non-trump suits considered as equals.

The ranking of suits, however, does matter during the bidding process – in that, a bid following another can only be made in a higher ranked suit, or else, one has to raise the level (thereby committing to make correspondingly more tricks than the previous bidder).

No Trump – The Fifth and the Highest Ranked Suit in Contract Bridge

As the name suggests, No Trump (abbreviated as NT) relates to playing a round without assigning a trump status to any of the four colored suits. No Trumps supersedes Spades as regards to ranking. All other suits are considered as equals during a No Trump play.

A contract in No Trumps can be reached during the bidding by a partnership under the following conditions:

When a suit-bid made by one partner does not seem to agree with the holding of the other partner.
The distributions of cards/suits are evenly balanced with one or other of the partners appearing to have some kind of control over all the suits.
The partnership seemingly finds the hands more suitable to play and make the contract – as also to score extra points (No Trump is valued higher than the other suits for scoring purposes).

A novice must, however, keep in mind that a No Trump contract could prove to be a doubled-edged weapon if not played correctly. While it is always very tempting to reach a No Trump contract in haste, due caution must be exercised by both the partners during the auction. An assured contract in a trump suit should always be preferred to a tentatively bid No Trumps.