Copyright The Boston Globe
Joan Wickersham’s latest book is “No Ship Sets Out To Be A Shipwreck.” Her column appears regularly in the Globe. Often, on an evening when we are upset about something — masked government agents grabbing people off the street, agencies established to protect people’s health run by people who know nothing about health, troops deployed to help quash violence in cities that are not particularly violent and not asking for help, a third of the “People’s House” bulldozed without the consent or knowledge of the people, a majority of elected representatives too sycophantic or too scared to push back on anything — my husband and I play cribbage. The equipment is simple: a wooden board with several columns of small holes, some metal pegs that fit into the holes, and a deck of cards. Each of us starts with six cards and then discards two, face down. Those discarded cards are called “the crib.” A random card from the remaining deck is turned face up, and play begins. Say my husband dealt. I go first, laying a 10 on the table, hoping he doesn’t have a five in his hand. But he plays a five; our two cards add up to 15, which in cribbage is a number that earns him 2 points; he moves one of his pegs two holes forward. Advertisement I then build on the first two cards, playing an eight, which brings the total to 23. The goal is to get to 31 exactly; if he has an eight in his hand, I’ll be sorry. But he plays a four. Aha! I also play a four, which not only brings me to 31 (two peg-holes along the cribbage board) but, because it immediately follows my husband’s four, also counts as two of a kind (two more peg-holes). Are you confused yet? So was I, when a friend taught me to play cribbage years ago. He would patiently explain and demonstrate. Then we would not see each other for six months, and when we next got together to play cribbage I wouldn’t remember a thing. Eventually, though, I got it. Advertisement To return to the game: Once we’ve both played all four cards in our hands, the game takes on another dimension. We each add up what we had in our hand. Are there combinations that total 15? Are there pairs or three of a kinds, or consecutive runs of three or more cards? The random card we turned face up at the beginning becomes a common resource, which can boost our scores a little, a lot, or none at all. Then the dealer gets to look at the crib and add those points to his score. And then it’s my turn to deal. We play quick hand after quick hand, moving our scoring pegs twice around the board. Whoever gets to the end first wins. So what’s the appeal of cribbage, especially now? It’s a mix of chance and strategy. The chance lies in the cards you are dealt. The strategy is what you do with them. You can be a canny strategist, get a rotten hand, and score very little. Or you can be a lucky novice who is dealt great cards, and your peg will make a whopping advance around the board. It’s communicative, a dance of call and response. Everything you do will influence what your opponent does next. It’s expansive. Two people can play, or three or four. It’s civilized. And gentle. But most of all, it’s fair and it’s balanced. It is not at all like Monopoly, where one player quickly amasses more property than the others, and from then on the outcome is inevitable: The game stretches agonizingly on as the oligarch gets richer and richer and the little guys get crushed. Advertisement In cribbage, luck and success can belong to anyone and can turn around very quickly. Each hand can reverse who is leading. If you’ve been winning a lot, you will eventually lose some, and if you’ve had a string of losses, you will eventually win some. The game requires a kind of humility, an understanding that all the players are equals, and an implicit faith that even though it may take a while, the pendulum will always swing. Joan Wickersham’s latest book is “No Ship Sets Out To Be A Shipwreck.” Her column appears regularly in the Globe.
