What Is a Skunk in Cribbage?

The skunk rule in plain words

Cribbage is played to 121 points, and the first player to peg out wins no matter how close the game was. The skunk is an extra layer on top of that: it measures how badly the loser lost. If the loser has fewer than 91 points, 31 or more behind, they have been skunked. If they have fewer than 61, less than half the board, they have been double skunked.

Nothing about the play changes. You still peg, count hands and cribs, and race to 121 exactly as before. The skunk only matters when the final scores are written down, and only if you and your opponent have agreed to count games rather than play one-offs.

The 91 and 61 thresholds are built into how the board is drawn: a standard 121-point track is four rows of 30 holes plus the game hole, so 90 is the end of the third row and 60 the end of the second. That makes the lines easy to see at a glance and is why most boards mark them with a small S.

How a skunk counts in match play

When you play a series, say first to seven games, a skunk is worth more than a plain win. The common conventions:

• Social and league play: a win is 1 game, a skunk is 2 games, a double skunk is 3 games. Some groups make the double skunk worth 4.
• American Cribbage Congress tournaments: a win scores 2 game points and a skunk scores 3. Double skunks are not scored separately, they count the same as a skunk.
• Money games: the stake is doubled for a skunk and tripled for a double skunk. This is the origin of the phrase "skunked" meaning shut out in other games and sports.

A rarely played triple skunk applies when the loser has fewer than 31 points. Given that the loser has counted at least a few hands and cribs by then, it almost never happens in a two-player game, and few rule sets include it.

Where the word comes from: the lurch

Long before anyone said "skunk", a heavy Cribbage loss was called a lurch. The word is borrowed from an old French and English table game called lourche, in which a player who fell far behind was said to be "in the lurch". Cribbage inherited it in the seventeenth century: a player who had not passed the halfway point when the game ended was lurched, and paid double. That is exactly the modern double skunk, and the expression "left in the lurch" survives in everyday English.

"Skunk" is American, from the nineteenth century, and simply means to defeat someone so completely that they score little or nothing. Cribbage adopted it for the 91 line, and the lurch line slipped down to become the double skunk. Both words are still in use; you will hear "lurched" in older British clubs and "skunked" nearly everywhere else.

Skunks on CardCouch

Every game on CardCouch is played to 121 with the standard skunk lines. When someone pegs out, the game-over screen shows both final scores, the number of rounds, and a Skunk! label if the loser finished under 91, or Double skunk! if they finished under 61. The label appears whether you are the one who did the skunking or the one who got skunked.

Each game stands alone, so a skunk does not change any running tally here; it is a badge on the result. If you keep a series against the computer, note the label and count it as two or three games in whichever convention you prefer.

How to avoid being skunked

Being skunked is mostly about position in the last third of the game. A few habits keep your peg past 90 even in a losing game:

• Know where you are. Once your opponent passes about 95, ask whether they can peg out next deal. If they can, your target changes from winning to reaching 91. Keep the four cards that guarantee points rather than the four that might make a big hand.
• Peg defensively when it does not matter, offensively when it does. If you are behind and need points, take every pair and fifteen you can during the play. If you are the one who is far ahead, avoid leads that give away runs and pairs.
• Count the crib. When you are the dealer, the crib is a second hand of points. Feed it well, even at some cost to your own hand, when you are short of the skunk line and it is your last crib of the game.
• Do not throw the game to the crib when it is theirs.Passing 5s or a pair into an opponent's crib is the fastest way to get skunked, because their crib and hand together can be worth 20 or more in one deal.

The positional play guide goes deeper into reading the board and adjusting your discards and pegging to the score, including the skunk line.

How to skunk your opponent

The mirror image. If you are well ahead, say 100 to 70, the question on each deal is whether you can finish before they cross 91. As the dealer you count last, so your opponent gets one more hand before your crib; as the non-dealer you count first, which is the better seat for closing a game out. Keep hands that score reliably, play the pegging to avoid giving away points, and do not chase a 24 when a safe 8 pegs you out.

And if the skunk is out of reach, forget it. A win at 121 to 92 is still a win, and stretching for a skunk you cannot get is how comfortable leads turn into losses.