Longtime Salem Cribbage Tradition Returns To Crown New Champion

SALEM, MA — A longstanding Witch City tradition pegged a new champion for the 27th year on Saturday at the Salem Cribbage Championships held at the Village Tavern Restaurant.

Former Salem Mayor Stan Usovicz claimed the first-place trophy with Richard Kraus earning second place.

Anne Casey finished third, Dave Powers was fourth, Pat Furlong was fifth, Ray Bernard was sixth and Kevin Furlong was seventh.

Eighty-eight players combined for 398 matches over eight hours of games. Many came from throughout the North Shore with some traveling from as far as New Hampshire to compete.

"Each year a different Salem restaurant hosts this fun tourney as kind of a tour of Salem restaurants," Tournament Director Steve Dibble told Patch. "This was the biggest crowd we have ever year and next year promises to be even bigger as most of the participants come back each year.

"Thanks go out to the Village Tavern for helping make this year one of Salem's best tournaments ever."

A special element of this year's event was the efforts of Ken LeFrancois' Salem High School woodworking shop class which made several boards for this year's event. Boards from Lynn's vocational woodworking students were also used because of the overflow of participants in this year's field.

"We will need even more 'official' boards made by Salem High students for next year's anticipated even larger tournament," Dibble said.

The four finalists on Saturday earned trophies with the top eight winning prizes, as well as those who earned 16 points in a hand. Prizes were also awarded for "skunk" wins of 31 points or more.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)