Foster's Complete Hoyle: An Encyclopedia of Games / Including all indoor games played to-day. With suggestions for good play, illustrative hands, and all official laws to date

by R. F. Foster

SOLITAIRE CRIBBAGE.

This game may be played by one person or by several, two to four making an interesting game, either as partners or each for himself.

The individual player takes a full pack of fifty-two cards, shuffles and cuts, and deals off three for himself, two for his crib, and then three more for himself. Taking up the six, he sorts them and discards for the crib, just as if the two cards already there had been laid off by an opponent. The pack is then cut for the starter.

There is no play, and the hand is turned up and counted, scoring it on a regular cribbage board. The crib is then counted and scored. Leaving the starter still face up on the top of the pack, the eight cards in hand and crib are thrown aside. For the next deal, the player gives himself three cards from the top of the pack, one of which was the starter on the last deal, then two for the crib and three more for himself, discarding for the crib, cutting a starter, counting and scoring hand and crib as before.

This is continued until only four cards are left, one of them being the starter for the last deal. Turn up these four cards and count them as a hand.

The game is usually 91 points, and the object of the solitaire player is to see if he can reach the game hole without going through the pack more than once. If he does not reach with six hands and cribs, each with a starter, and one hand of four cards without a starter, he has failed to get the solitaire.

WHEN TWO OR MORE PLAY. The object is now to see which player or partnership can get the greatest number of points in going through the pack once, each playing his own solitaire with his individual pack, but keeping level with his opponents in the matter of hands and deals.

It is usual for each to cut the starter for the other and then to verify the count of the other’s hands and cribs. If one reaches 91 before the other gets round past 60, it is reckoned as a double game. If neither side reaches 91 before the pack runs out, the player that comes nearer to it wins. When two play against two as partners, each takes an adversary and plays against him individually, the scores being balanced at the end by adding those of the partners together.