Noddy (Knave Noddy)

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Card values and order
3. Keeping score
4. Setup
5. Scoring combinations
6. Counting the hands
7. The play
8. Winning the game
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants

Overview

Noddy is the English game from which Cribbage grew. It was played from the 16th century on, but no one wrote its rules down in full, so the game here is a reconstruction by the games historian David Parlett, based mainly on Francis Willughby's Book of Games (about 1665). It is Cribbage in miniature: each player has only three cards and there is no crib. You score for combinations – cards that add up to 15, pairs, runs – first in your hand, then while you play the cards to a running total. The first to reach 31 points wins.

• Players: 2 (4 in partnerships, see Variants).
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers, and a Cribbage board or pen and paper to keep score.

Card values and order

• For adding up, each card counts its number: Ace 1, 2 to 10 as marked, and Jack, Queen and King 10 each.
• For runs, the order is A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q K. The Ace is always low: A-2-3 is a run, Q-K-A is not.
• Suits only matter for flushes and for Knave Noddy (see below).

Keeping score

Points come in small amounts all through a deal. Write them down (or move your peg on a Cribbage board) as soon as you make them – this is called pegging. The first player to reach 31 wins at once, even in the middle of a deal.

Setup

1. Both players cut; the lower card deals first (Ace low). After that the deal alternates.
2. The dealer deals three cards to each player, one at a time, face down.
3. The dealer puts the rest of the deck face down and turns its top card face up. This is the turn-up. Both players use it as a fourth card when counting their hands. Its suit is called "trumps", though there is no trick play.
4. If the turn-up is a Jack, the non-dealer pegs 2 at once for Knave Noddy.

Scoring combinations

A card may count in several different combinations. For example, 9-10-10-J is a pair of 10s (2) and two runs of three (2 + 2) – 6 in all.

Counting the hands

Before any card is played, both players count their hand together with the turn-up, as if it were their fourth card. The non-dealer goes first, then the dealer. You announce your combinations out loud and peg them, but you don't show your cards.

Example: Anna deals. Ben holds 10♣ J♥ 4♥ and Anna holds 6♠ 6♦ 3♣; the turn-up is 5♥. Ben announces: "Fifteen two (10 + 5), fifteen four (J + 5), twenty-five seven (10 + J + 5), a flush of three hearts ten, and Knave Noddy eleven" – the J♥ is the Jack of the turn-up's suit. He pegs 11. Anna announces: "Fifteen two (6 + 6 + 3) and a pair is four", and pegs 4.

The play

1. The non-dealer plays a card face up in front of themselves and says its value. Then the dealer plays a card and says the total of all cards played so far, and so on, taking turns.
2. The total may never go over 31.
3. When the card you play makes a combination with the card or cards just played before it, you peg it: bring the total to exactly 15 (2) or 25 (1 per card played so far), pair the card just played (2) or make a pair royal or double pair royal, or complete a run or flush of three or more of the last cards.
4. If you can't play without going over 31, say "Go". Your opponent then plays on as far as they can without going over 31.
5. Whoever plays the last card pegs 1 for it. If that card makes the total exactly 31, it is the Hitter and pegs 2 instead.

There is only one round of play: when neither player can play any more, the deal is over, and any cards still in hand simply don't count. (The play can make runs or flushes of five or more, which a hand can't.)

Example (continued): Ben leads 4♥ ("four"). Anna plays 3♣ ("seven"). Ben plays 10♣ ("seventeen"), Anna 6♠ ("twenty-three"). Ben's J♥ would make 33, so he says "Go". Anna plays 6♦ ("twenty-nine"): a pair with her 6♠ for 2, and 1 for the last card. After this deal Ben has 11 and Anna 4 + 3 = 7.

Winning the game

Deal after deal, the scores add up. The first player to reach 31 points wins – at the moment they reach it, whether while counting the hands or during the play. As the non-dealer counts first, they sometimes win before the dealer can count at all.

Tips for beginners

• With just three cards, every card matters: count carefully before announcing, and check your opponent's announcements against the turn-up and the cards played.
• Sixteen of the 52 cards count 10, so a 5 in your hand or as the turn-up often makes a fifteen.
• In the play, avoid bringing the total to 5 or 21: a single 10-card makes 15 or 31 for your opponent.
• Watch the score near the end: a player at 25 or more can win with their hand count alone.

Variants

Optional – agree before you start.

• Four players: according to Willughby, Noddy was also played by four in two partnerships, partners sitting opposite. Each player gets three cards, and partners score together. Justin du Coeur, who made another reconstruction, suggests counting and playing in turn clockwise, starting to the dealer's left.
• Du Coeur's reconstruction: a turned-up Jack scores 2 for the dealer (as in Charles Cotton's rules for early Cribbage, 1674). A twenty-five always scores 2, and a flush of three scores 3, of four 4.
• Randle Holme's scores (1688): play to 61. The K♠ ("Flatback") scores 6, the Q♥ ("Countenance") 4, the J♥ 5 and the Jack of trumps 2; a pair scores 4, a pair royal 12, four of a kind 24; every fifteen and every twenty-five scores 2. In the play, whoever comes nearest to 31 pegs 1, and exactly 31 pegs 2.
• Hitter: Parlett's description leaves open whether a Hitter in the play also scores as a thirty-one (1 per card); we count only the 2. Agree beforehand if you want to count both.
• Early Cribbage: deal five cards each; each player puts two face down into the dealer's crib, which the dealer counts with the turn-up after their own hand. Play to 61. This is how Cribbage began.