Daily Cribbage Hand

Needing to score two points as Pone with Dealer way back at Hole 101 is not much of a challenge of a puzzle, but maybe we can pretend for a moment that each Hole we prevent the Dealer from scoring here saves a life or some such nonsense.

Since 6 choose 2 is 15, there are 15 was to split every hand, and since no pairs exist, all 15 ways are unique today. And after any Cut, every one of these fifteen discards will produce at least two points, so we end up really having to consider all 15 discard combinations in a 'puzzle' that technically, we could not lose if we tried!

Cards that allow us to peg two points BEFORE Dealer can peg any would be desirable, but also, if we could retain cards that prevent any pegging from occurring at all as much as possible then this would also work well here. Dealer always pegs one point UNLESS we can go out first, so let's make OFFENSE our main objective.

The BEST way to peg two points is to retain those cards which, after leading one of them, produce the most opportunities for scoring a (15-2). For example, after "Keep (A 4 5 8)" and "Toss (7 J)" if we lead the 4 Card, we can score after Dealer plays: (AAA, 333, 444, 555, 6666, 888, TTTT, JJJ, QQQQ, KKKK) which is 34 responses. Not too shabby for my First Wild Guess.

This task would also contain much BIAS as the Dealer is much more likely to play a 7 Card or higher on our 4 Card lead, since it avoids any simple RUNs, etc. By leading the 4 Card, we therefore "chase off" half of the deck, and more importantly, we ALWAYS prevent the Dealer from scoring an immediate (15-2), while at the same time also allowing ourselves to always score that (15-2). I like leading that 4 Card for this reason, and it also allows us to win if it's paired, which is nice.

Without looking for minutes or hours through all of the possibilities, I am inclined to believe that retaining the 4 Card, along with the Ace, and maybe two higher cards, is probably going to be our best option. And so without going through every combination, I will choose "Keep (A 4 7 8)" and "Toss (5 J)" and then as stated earlier, I shall lead the 4 Card.

Our goal is to score two unanswered points, but if we do give up any pegs, we want to win immediately if possible. And last, if we cannot peg at all, our hope is to hold the Dealer to the minimum pegging, or one Hole. Even though it's a very poor puzzle, we can still use logic and follow solid principles. If we don't use them now, when it hardly matters, we won't use them later, when it really does matter.