Kathy
Pacocha, right, watches her opponent, Ron Hattan, during
a game of cribbage on Thursday evening at the Cloverleaf
dog track. The players are members of the Loveland
Cribbage Club, which in its second week already has more
than 30 players. Reporter-Herald/Eric Bellamy
New cribbage
club in Loveland has card players pegged Mountain View Peggers meet every Thursday at dog
track
By Ann
Depperschmidt The Daily
Reporter-Herald
Troy Thorson’s
grandparents taught him how to play cribbage when he was 11
years old.
“They had a big cribbage board hanging on the wall,” the
Loveland man said. “I said, ‘Let’s play that game, Grandma.’”
He didn’t start playing competitive cribbage until the end
of college. But now he’s hooked.
And from the looks of the crowd gathering at the cribbage
club he started two weeks ago in Loveland, he’s not the only
one.
“It’s one of those games that’s a combination of skill and
luck,” he said. “As my Grandpa used to say, ‘I can beat the
guy that invented the game if I just got the right cards.’”
Cribbage is a card game played between two people who use a
pegged board to keep score. The first person to tally 121
points wins. After one game, which typically takes about 15
minutes, the players switch opponents.
“Kids today don’t seem too excited about card games,” said
Charlie Douthit, the director of the cribbage club in
Cheyenne, who attended last week’s Loveland club. “But if they
play it, they might find it fun.”
The new Loveland chapter is part of the American Cribbage
Congress, a national organization that tracks player
standings.
“You get to know a lot of people,” said Douthit, who has
played in tournaments with people from around the country.
Roger Wilson, a Westminster resident who attended last
week’s Loveland cribbage club, has earned more than 10,000
points in sanctioned tournaments — making him the No. 1 player
in the state.
Cribbage “is so unpredictable,” he said. “There are
thousands and thousands of combinations.”
The game is easy to learn, the Cheyenne director said, but
hard to master.
“We used to say cribbage is 70 percent luck and 30 percent
skill,” Douthit said. “But the more you play, the more you
find out it’s 90 percent luck and 10 percent skill.”
Cribbage Vocab
Crib — Four cards (two by each player) set aside
from the original hand of six cards for the benefit of the
dealer before the starter card is turned.
First Street — Holes 1 through 30 on a cribbage
board. A tournament-length cribbage board is divided into four
sections (First Street, Second Street, etc.) of 30 holes each
which can be used as landmarks during a game.
Hauling Lumber — Hauling Lumber (or Timber) usually
refers to intentional over pegging, which is a form of
cheating during a cribbage game.
Muggins — Taking points your opponent misses.
Skunk — Any game in which the loser scores 61-90
points, not making it onto Fourth Street.
Source: American Cribbage Congress, www.cribbage.org
Mountain View Peggers, the Loveland club of the American
Cribbage Congress, meet 7 p.m. every Thursday at the
Cloverleaf Kennel Club, 2527 N.W. Frontage Road; $7 buy-in
that is split among the top scorers.
For more information: call Troy Thorson, 669-5686,
or visit www.cribbage.org.
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