Ruling — Cribbage

You asked

How do I set up the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Cribbagebg-2398-en-1e

For standard Cribbage: 1. Place the board midway between the players [1]. 2. If three persons play, use a triangular board with three sets of holes and three game holes [1]. 3. Each player is provided with two pegs [2]. For Solitaire Cribbage: 1. Take a full pack of fifty-two cards, shuffle and cut [3]. 2. Deal off three cards for yourself, two for your crib, and then three more for yourself [3]. 3. Sort the six cards and discard for the crib [3]. 4. Cut the pack for the starter [3]. For Four-Handed Cribbage: 1. Players cut for partners, choice of seats, and deal; the two lowest pair against the two highest, and the lowest takes the first deal and crib [4]. 2. Deal five cards to each player, one at a time [4]. 3. Discard one card from each hand to form the crib, leaving four cards with which to play [4].

[1] RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook · p.2 · [Illustration]

[2] RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook · p.2 · CRIBBAGE.

[3] RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook · p.15 · SOLITAIRE CRIBBAGE.

[4] RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook · p.14 · FOUR-HANDED CRIBBAGE. · SEVEN-CARD CRIBBAGE.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 1605 ms · ask 16948 ms · total 1525101 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 1506464 ms · generation 18637 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 55, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Determine the number of qualifiers (rule 13.2.b). Collect and count scorecards from each table to make sure that all were turned in. Do not write scores in the boxes at the top of scorecards until cross-checking is completed. Initially check the game-points and games-won columns of all scorecards. D", "headingPath": "Method", "sharpsignalDocId": 151}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "If the qualifying round has a cut-for-deal format, the pack is cut to determine which player deals first in the game; the low card wins. If the qualifying round has alternate-deal format, there is no cut to determine the first dealer. In an alternate-deal situation, the tournament director must anno", "headingPath": "1.5. Outline of Playing Sequence", "sharpsignalDocId": 151}, {"page": 31, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "If the dealer plays a card before pegging the two points, the dealer forfeits them. After the starter card has been turned, the deck must be placed on the dealer's side of the board. The play of the cards starts immediately after the turn of the starter card. The pone shall play the first card face ", "headingPath": "6.3. Scoring When the Starter Card Is a Jack (His Heels) · 6.4. Placement of Deck after Cut · 7.1. The Order of Play", "sharpsignalDocId": 151}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.031319, "snippet": "The board is always placed midway between the players. If three persons play, a triangular board is necessary. This is provided with three sets of holes and three game holes. When a cribbage board is not at hand, the game may be kept by ruling a sheet of paper into ten divisions, and marking them wi", "headingPath": "[Illustration]", "sharpsignalDocId": 223}, {"page": 18, "score": 0.03101, "snippet": "shuffle the pack, and the player who shuffled last must allow the opponent to cut first. When cutting for the first deal of a game, the first player shall remove no fewer than four cards and not more than half the pack. The second player shall remove no fewer than four cards and shall leave at least", "headingPath": "3.1. Procedure for Cutting the Pack · 3.2. Winner of the Deal · 3.3. Cutting before Each Deal", "sharpsignalDocId": 151}, {"page": 28, "score": 0.030536, "snippet": "Prior to the turn of the starter card, if only one player discards to the wrong side of the board, that player is permitted to retrieve the card(s) and reevaluate the selection. If all four cards are discovered to be on the pone's side, they shall be moved to the dealer's side, without exposure, unl", "headingPath": "5.1. Placement · 5.2. Exposure", "sharpsignalDocId": 151}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.029857, "snippet": "In the first deal of the game, once the deck has been cut and dealing begins, it is assumed the cut for deal was made and play continues. After the cards are shuffled and cut, the dealer distributes one card at a time, face down from the top of the pack alternately to each player, starting with the ", "headingPath": "4.1. Order of Dealing · 4.2. Dealing the Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 151}, {"page": 54, "score": 0.029211, "snippet": "Recommendations for amendments to these rules shall be submitted in writing to the Rules Committee, which will discuss, prepare, and present all relevant proposals to the board of directors for final approval. Whenever possible, (a) establish individual tables of less than 30 players and (b) avoid s", "headingPath": "14.2. Amendments · General Considerations", "sharpsignalDocId": 151}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "[Illustration]", "sharpsignalDocId": 223}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "CRIBBAGE.", "sharpsignalDocId": 223}, {"page": 15, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SOLITAIRE CRIBBAGE.", "sharpsignalDocId": 223}, {"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "FOUR-HANDED CRIBBAGE. · SEVEN-CARD CRIBBAGE.", "sharpsignalDocId": 223}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 151 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 151 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Nov 6, 2026 14:34

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 151)	Method	p.55	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 151)	1.5. Outline of Playing Sequence	p.12	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 151)	6.3. Scoring When the Starter Card Is a Jack (His Heels) · 6.4. Placement of Deck after Cut · 7.1. The Order of Play	p.31	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 223)	[Illustration]	p.2	0.031319 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 151)	3.1. Procedure for Cutting the Pack · 3.2. Winner of the Deal · 3.3. Cutting before Each Deal	p.18	0.03101 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 151)	5.1. Placement · 5.2. Exposure	p.28	0.030536 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 151)	4.1. Order of Dealing · 4.2. Dealing the Cards	p.20	0.029857 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 151)	14.2. Amendments · General Considerations	p.54	0.029211 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 223)	[Illustration]	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 223)	CRIBBAGE.	p.2	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 223)	SOLITAIRE CRIBBAGE.	p.15	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Cribbage — Rulebook (corpus doc 223)	FOUR-HANDED CRIBBAGE. · SEVEN-CARD CRIBBAGE.	p.14	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 1605 ms · first delta 16981 ms · total 1525101 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 1506464 ms · retrieval 1605 ms · ask 16948 ms · gateway work 18637 ms · total 1525101 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2820
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 220
tok/sec: 138.1 tok/sec — 220 output tokens in 1.593 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 53s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: SERVED — setup-shaped and this game's approved setup checklist is offered above
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): set up

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 73), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.