Sunday 3:48 AM

I am not so sure that the Flush is the way to go today. I chose A-7 which is a less risky toss to dealer.

   

Sunday 3:49 AM

Did I miss something with not keeping the flush here? Looks pretty basic to me. Four lead with one getting cut. dec

   

Sunday 4:06 AM

Looks like 3rd hand of the game, we are First NON-dealer, and are at a positional disadvantage. Need to hold the 6 points, hope for a cut, and peg agressively.

   

Sunday 4:20 AM

Ras often champions the keeping of a flush. Despite it needing me to discard a 5, 5-A must be one of the safer 5-? discards, (another A and a 10 out of circulation here too), so it is still tempting.

Recently Ras advised keeping "triple nickles" in hand, and 10-7 with a 5 out of circulation seems innocuous enough, so I'll try that out.

4-A-5-A does make an eleven so, mightily contrived I know, but maybe:

4(4)-X(14)-A(15/2)-X(25)-5(30)-go-A(31/2).

   

Sunday 5:01 AM

I’m not in good position so I’m not giving up that five spot. James above me talks about the triple nickels. I’ll keep them the lead the four.

   

Sunday 6:02 AM

I hedged. A7 is a defensive move. If I knew a 4 would be cut, I'd play it differently.

Lead the 4 and play cautious.

   

Sunday 7:03 AM

Discard of the day is the name of the game and today is an example of disapline not throwing the five..

   

Sunday 9:00 AM

Keeping the flush in this case means you just gave the dealer very workable cards and you gave yourself a 2 point reduction in overall points gained. Anyone who knows me, knows I love flushes....BUT even I sometimes realize that, not all flushes are good flushes to keep. I submit that this is one of those times. I lead the 4 and peg from there.

Sunday 9:21 AM

only a 2 or 7 doesn't add to this. Leading the 4 Offense

   

Sunday 9:43 AM

It was really close for me between A5 and A7. A5 just really isn't that bad of a discard (if you're throwing a 5, the A is the best card to go with it). A7 is only about a point better than the A5 on average, and I'm keeping 2 more points so the floor of this hand is higher. We are behind here so keeping points won me over. If we were ahead I'd probably do it the other way.

   

Sunday 10:10 AM

Our Opponent is "Ahead and Dealing" and therefore this places us in an awkward POSITION although it's still early in the game.

Because of this, I'm looking for a DEFENSIVE discard, such as Toss (A T), Toss (A 7), or Toss (7 T).

This last idea of Toss (7 T) allows us to retain an interesting arrangement of Keep (A A 4 5).

Toss (A 7) is possibly also very attractive here as it forms an 'isolation' tactic because the Cuts that help it (AA, 777, 8888), which are primarily "like" cards. Still, I think Toss (7 T) might do just as well.

Lastly, Keep (A A 4 5) forms a nice, four-card "Magic Eleven" for us, and so we might enjoy pegging (15-2) as well as (31-2) against a Dealer holding primarily Ten Cards.

It's important to note that none of the other discard choices allows us to hold either a three- or a four-card "Magic Eleven."

   

Sunday 10:24 AM

Didn't think the extra two points was worth giving away our best (individual) card - one that guarantees the dealer 2 points.

Was also interested in the 7-10 toss. However, I often like the combinations of cards that require a pair to make a 15-2. Things like toss (3 9), (4 7), (3 6), (A 7), etc.

   

Sunday 3:54 PM

Two ways to score 6pts. The flush and A-A-4-10 (5-7). But might A-A-4-5 (7-10) be worth looking at with lots of cuts for 8pts and a low scoring discard?:

AS-4-7-10: 6pts - 6¼pts (Schell: 6.01) = -¼pts

A-A-4-10: 6pts - 7pts (Schell: 7.00) = -1pt

A-A-4-5: 2pts - 4¼pts (Schell: 4.31) = -2¼pts

Potential:

AS-4-7-10: Improves with AA, 3333, 444, 555, 777, 8888 + 15xXs = 34 cuts = 34/46 = 73.9% up to 10/12pts with AA, 444, 777, 101010 = 11 cuts. Plus 9 spades for an extra 1pt for the flush = 9/46 =

A-A-4-10: Improves with AA, 3333, 444, 555, 9999 + 15 xXs = 31 cuts = 31/46 = 67.4% up to 10/12pts with AA, 444 + 15xXs = 20 cuts.

A-A-4-5: Improves with AA, 3333, 444, 555, 6666, 8888, 9999 + 15xXs = 35 cuts = 35/46 = 76.1% up to 7/8pts with 555, 6666, 9999 +15xXs = 26 cuts.

Pegging

I think all these three hands will peg very well and I feel its difficult to predict which will be best. Of course the flush will be difficult to read but the other two have the benefit of a pair of As plus A-A-4-5 is a 4-card magic eleven.

Position:

It looks like we were First Pone so will still be playing Offense.

Summary:

The flush has more cuts for improvement than A-A-4-10 but less cuts for 10-12pts. However it has ½pt lower starting value but 9 spade cuts for the extra 1pt. A-A-4-5 has the most cuts for improvement with many from 2pts to 8pts a tremendous improvement. Also it will peg well. I think it will be difficult to catch up the 2pts compared to the flush so I'll throw the AH-5.

   

Sunday 4:24 PM

At 23-25* playing an offense strategy for the pegging the dynamic expected averages and Win/Loss %s are:

_______________Our
Offense___Hand_Pegs__Crib___Total___W7 %____W8 %
A-A-4-5___6.17+2.20+(-4.26)=4.11____15.5____18.4
AS-4-5-10_7.13+1.41+(-4.44)=4.10____16.5____18.8
AS-4-7-10_8.28+1.48+(-5.99)=3.77____18.1____18.2
A-A-4-10__8.57+1.93+(-7.01)=3.49____19.9____17.5

Offense______L7 %____L8 %
A-A-4-5______35.0____56.3
AS-4-5-10____35.9____56.4
AS-4-7-10____38.8____58.5
A-A-4-10_____42.3____60.1

A-A-4-5 is only 0.01pt better than AS-4-5-10 and 0.34pt better than the flush and although the flush is better for Win %s A-A-4-5 is lowest for Loss %s. So I'll select the 7-10 to discard.

After the 4 cut I'll lead an a and play Offense:

Lead__________Our Pegging Pts.
A__________________2.35
5__________________2.03
4__________________1.91

   

Sunday 5:24 PM

By holding those triple nickels at the bottom of the hand, you avoid giving up six points in the crib. BTW the five with anything to opponent crib is nearly six points and only the A-5 just misses. HalscribCLX shows the average for A-5 at 5.99. My empirical data shows it at 5.811 (287). With dealer at hole 25 needing to be at 43-47 for next deal, will lead the As. Just might get paired because of dealer's need for a few pegs and that chance increases as non-dealer would most often retain A-A if holding a pair. By leading the Ace, that keeps the 4-5 intact and could score a run in the later pegging. The additional potential pegs and the much smaller crib average make up for playing two points instead of six as would be the case for the flush. james500 had it early in the fray