- Too many or too few cards dealt constitutes a misdeal, the penalty for which is the taking of two points by the non-dealer.
- A faced card, or a card exposed during the act of dealing necessitates a new deal, without penalty.
- The dealer shuffles the cards and the non-dealer cuts them for the "start."
- If the non-dealer touch the cards (except to cut them for the turn-up) after they have been cut for the start, he forfeits two points.
- In cutting for the start, not fewer than three cards must be lifted from the pack or left on the table.
- The non-dealer throws out for the crib before the dealer. A card once laid out cannot be recalled, nor must either party touch the crib till the hand is played out. Either player confusing the crib cards with his hand, is liable to a penalty of three points.
[In three and four-hand cribbage the left-hand player throws out first for the crib, then the next; the dealer last. The usual and best way is for the non-dealer to throw his crib over to the dealer's side of the board; on these two cards the dealer places his own, and hands the pack over to be cut. The pack is then at the right side of the board for the next deal.]
- The player who takes more points than those to which he is entitled, either in play or in reckoning hand or crib, is liable to be "pegged;" that is, to be put back as many points as he has over-scored, and have the points added to his opponent's side.
[In pegging you must not remove your opponent's front peg till you have given him another. In order "to take him down,'' you remove your own back peg and place it where his front peg ought to be, you then take his wrongly placed peg and put it in front of your own front, as many holes as he has forfeited by wrongly scoring.]
- No penalty attaches to the taking of too few points in play, hand, or crib.