Friday, August 6, 2010

eCribbage: An Online Home for Cribbage Lovers

Since today is turning into Cribbage Friday, we might as well make it a full trifecta and talk about the best site for Cribbage online: eCribbage.com.

After you try eCribbage, you won’t want to bother with any other site. This is the real deal: slick, professional, and loaded to the gills with features.

The programs and the site are the work of Damien Blond. This isn’t just any card-playing website. This is the work of someone who has focused on doing one game right. Even more impressive is Blond’s desire to create a real online community of card enthusiasts, where fans can find live opponents, communicate, and, compete.

As of this writing, the site has almost 22,000 registered users, and it’s not at all unusual find a hundred people competing in several dozen games. Leaderboards, messaging, teams, and tournament tracks all come together to create a little corner of the internet that Cribbage fans can call home.

The game software itself is first-rate, with two levels of AI opponent in addition to the live players. Graphics are clean and functional, with a simple interface and plenty of information on each game. The software even rates your play by calculating a Cribbage rating, derived from the CXR system used in Chess.

The only quibble I have with eCribbage is the peculiar use of sound effects, which are jarring. Since I turn off the sound to play cards, this doesn’t bother me, but it’s one of the few awkward spots on an otherwise professional site.

eCribbage offers the traditional game (2, 3, and 4 hands), King’s Cribbage, CrossCrib, Crib With Jokers, Lowball Cribbage, Back Up 10 Cribbage, Crash Cribbage, and Cross 5 Cribbage, plus the opportunity to play with manual scoring, muggings rules, and team play.

Basic gameplay is free, but a $34 Pro subscription offers additional features, such as custom avatars, advanced stats, and the ability to form leagues. It also helps keep the site afloat, so if you find yourself putting in some time there, you might want to pitch a little something in the kitty.

Whether you’re looking for a quick game against a computer opponent, or trying to find a live player, eCribbage is the only place you need to go.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

As someone who has been on that site for 2 years, I can only say, why play anywhere else? There is NOTHING out there that even remotely comes close to this site. The genius that put this site together is so easily accessible, and so nice, it's amazing! Check it out - if you are an internet game player, THIS is the site you're looking for!

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