You make this decision every single deal, and it is worth more than everything else you do at the table combined. Here is how to think about it — as the dealer, as the non-dealer, and when the score says you should break your own rules.
In two-handed cribbage you are dealt six cards and keep four. There are fifteen ways to make that choice, and the difference between the best and worst of them is routinely six or seven points a deal. Over a twelve-deal game that is more than the entire margin of most matches.
The play is largely reactive — you respond to what your opponent leads. The count is pure arithmetic with no decision in it at all. The discard is the one moment each deal where you exercise real judgement, against incomplete information, with a measurable cost for getting it wrong.
Every discard decision is a comparison of two quantities:
The dealer's crib averages roughly 4.5 to 5 points across all deals. That number is the baseline you are trying to beat as dealer, and hold below as non-dealer. It is also why the deal is such an advantage: the dealer sees about five free points every other hand.
As dealer, throwing two cards worth 3 to the crib costs you nothing and gains you 3. As non-dealer, throwing the same two cards costs you 3 twice over — once from your hand, once into your opponent's column.
When the crib is yours, throw cards that combine — with each other and with the two unknown cards your opponent contributes. You want fertile ground.
Notice the theme: 5s, cards that add to five, cards that add to fifteen, and cards that sit next to each other. Almost every strong crib throw is one of those four things.
Wide-apart high cards — K–8, Q–7, K–9 — are nearly dead. A King can only make a run downward, and two cards more than two ranks apart can never form a run with only two more cards to help. If you find yourself with nothing better, you are usually keeping too much in hand.
Now everything inverts. You want to throw barren, disconnected junk — cards that cannot make fifteens, cannot start runs, and cannot pair each other.
The safest discards share a family resemblance:
The King is the workhorse of defensive discarding: it is the only rank that cannot be extended upward into a run, which cuts its run potential roughly in half compared with a middle card.
Some throws are actively self-destructive. If you are handing your opponent a crib, avoid these unless keeping them would cost you more than they will:
| Throw | Why it hurts |
|---|---|
| Any 5 | Sixteen ten-cards in the deck each make a fifteen with it. A lone 5 is the most valuable single card you can donate. |
| 5–5 | The best crib throw in cribbage. Never give it away voluntarily. |
| Two cards summing to 5 (A–4, 2–3) | Any ten-card completes the fifteen. |
| Two cards summing to 15 (7–8, 6–9) | Two free points, before the crib even gets going. |
| Touching cards (6–7, 4–5) | Run seeds. One neighbouring card is worth three, two are worth eight. |
| Pairs | Two guaranteed points and a pair-royal chance. |
| Same-suit cards | Minor, but a crib flush needs all five — do not start it for them. |
If you take nothing else from this page: do not throw a 5 into your opponent's crib unless the alternative genuinely costs you more points than it saves. It is the most expensive habit in casual cribbage.
Hand value is not the whole picture. The four cards you keep also have to survive the play, and some hands peg far better than others of equal counting value.
As a rough guide, a point of hand value is worth slightly more than a point of pegging value, so do not wreck a good hand chasing pegs — but when two options are within a point of each other, take the one that plays better. The pegging guide covers what "plays better" means in practice.
Expected-value tables assume an average game. Real games have a scoreboard, and near the end it should change your decisions.
You are the dealer holding 5 5 6 7 8 9.
Keeping 5 5 6 7 looks attractive — a double run and a pair. Count it, though: 5+6+7 never reaches fifteen, so it is two runs of three (6) plus the pair (2), for 8.
Now try 6 7 8 9: 6+9 and 7+8 are both fifteens (4), plus a run of four (4) — also 8. The hands are equal. But this line lets you throw 5–5 into your own crib, the most productive discard in the game at close to nine points on average.
Same hand, roughly nine extra points. Keep 6–7–8–9.
You are the non-dealer holding 4 5 5 6 K 9.
Keep 4 5 5 6 — a double run of three with two fifteens, worth 12 before the starter — and throw K–9, the safest discard in the game.
This is the ideal case: your strongest hand and your safest throw happen to be the same decision. Take it without thinking.
You are the non-dealer holding 2 3 5 7 8 K.
Nothing here is comfortable. 2 3 sums to five and must not go across. 7 8 is an instant fifteen and a run seed. The 5 is the card you least want to donate.
Work the candidates. Keep 3 5 7 8: 7+8 = 15 and 3+5+7 = 15, so 4 points, and the throw is 2–K — which makes no fifteen, no run, and no pair. Barren.
Compare keeping 2 3 7 8: only 7+8 scores, for 2 points, and it forces you to throw the 5. Strictly worse on both sides of the ledger.
Keep 3–5–7–8, throw 2–K. The best hand and the safest throw again coincide.
Note what happened: keeping the 5 was not just about denying it to the crib. Sixteen ten-cards in the deck make a fifteen with it, so it is also the card most likely to improve on the cut.
Run through this until it becomes automatic, which takes about fifty games:
The fastest way to internalise all of it is volume. Play a lot of hands, notice what your cribs actually produce, and you will find your instincts converging on the tables without ever having memorised them.
Put it to work. Play free against the computer and watch what your discards actually earn.
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