Wednesday 3:11 AM

Playing our position first, the next par hole is 96 and I am short by 20 points. Pone at 82 needs only 14 points to reach this position. Choosing offense - get on down the board.
This hand has an advantage over tossing 2-3 with combined average of 8.10 exp. avg. hand and crib value 5.87 (13.97) points vs. exp. avg. hand of 6.00 and crib value 7.14 (13.14) points, respectively.

   

Wednesday 3:19 AM

Offense. Important decision on how to peg on lead card do I count on crib to add and play defense on the pegging? dec

   

Wednesday 4:09 AM

7 - 7 is substantially the best. Position is not ideal but not that bad either.

   

Wednesday 4:20 AM

Fortunately, due to some deletions by Ras, I've managed to get a puzzle in featuring these position holes, fairly soon after Spin's (if I remember correctly), query about them.

I suspect this arrangement of cards may be an exception to the rules on sacrifice limits, but:

a. I've only sacrificed one point in hand to discard 2-3, holding four points rather than the five I would've had with A-2-3-9. A two point sacrifice is permitted to discard 2-3.

b. There's still a chance that the cut will improve my hand score to 12+, with cuts of a seven or eight doing so.

The flush will improve on all cuts, but to my mind, is a red herring.

   

Wednesday 4:29 AM

Keeping the small run and the nine that worked well with it. The seven are the third best pair to ones crib you can throw.

   

Wednesday 5:49 AM

What your preference 23 or 77? I'll toss myself the 77 and pray for help.

Ras likes to mention that 88 in your own crib is usually 2 points. The pone doesnt help. I would imagine 77 does do that much better, because the pone wont give me any help.

I would have been happy to reach hole 90. With the cut, I'll go for hole 95. It becomes tricky, because I would like to keep my pone on the other side of the skunk line, which might be difficult if he has low cards as well.

   

Wednesday 5:53 AM

Good puzzle. My first inclination was A239, and it may be the best keep, but it is hard to pass up the 23 in the crib. Even though 77 is the second best pair for your crib. I agree in this case the flush is a red herring. A7 not a good throw if you are holding onto another 7.

   

Wednesday 7:10 AM

Lots of cuts for at least 7 points with good peggers. I like it this way.

   

Wednesday 7:31 AM

Potential is my view. 3/2 in crib good for me. Cut an 8, good for me.

   

Wednesday 7:49 AM

A bit better than average cards for me it looks like. With these cards and that 2 cut playing defense is an easy choice for me but I'll be very interested to see what opponent lays down for a lead card. 3 holes isn't much and that is how short pone is here. Job one for me is to do everything I can within reason to keep pone short. Job 2 is to try to go out as Dealer 2 deals from now. If I get to job 3 it's probably a pegging war and opponent has dealer advantage there.

   

Wednesday 7:55 AM

My strategy is optimal. My surplus, and my opponent’s deficit are similar. But it makes no difference with these six cards. I will always play it this way. The expected average is so much better. The hand pegs well offensively *and* defensively.

Switching to defense after that sweet cut. I know I’ll be at least at hole 91, and my minimum target was 86. Remember what we discussed last Wednesday. At this score, playing out the 26 Theory, both parties would stand at 118-118* after three deals. Our opponent would be dealing and have the pegging advantage, and peg out before our first hand show. We must keep her/him as short as possible here. No pairing for me obviously. I won’t even take the (15-2) on a 6 lead, although that might not be *too* bad a play. I’ll dump my lone Ace there. On the 9 lead I will show Pone my 3, hoping they don’t have a 3-6-9 combo; and more likely 2-4-9. But the 9 lead often comes from the same hand I hold, or 2-3-4-9. So there may be no way to avoid giving up a score if Pone leads a 9.

   

Wednesday 9:47 AM

Actually, a bit surprised that toss 2-3 didn't garner more votes -- Perhaps, I considered it too long, before choosing the 7s.

   

Wednesday 11:22 AM

Toss (2 3) has a Crib Value of nearly 7 Points, while Toss (7 7) falls a few points behind, and nothing will ever change that.

However, as the Dealer, when we look at potential growth for both Hand and Crib, we must compare the beauty of Toss (2 3) in the Crib against the dissolution of the A-2-3 RUN in our Hand.

Now it's not so easy a decision, because the A-2-3 RUN has enormous potential for growth as well.

When we examine specific helpful or unhelpful Cuts, it's often wise to determine whether these may still help or not regardless of how we split the hand. As an example: if we Keep (A 7 7 9), only either a 7 Card or an 8 Card make an appreciable difference as opposed to if we were instead to discard the two 7 Cards.

But we can find at least twice as many more examples in which Cuts may boost Keep (A 2 3 9), Cuts such as AAA, 222, 333, 999 for example, and such Cuts are unlikely to help as much if we Toss (2 3).

It's close, and I have said that as Dealer, Toss (2 3) seldom *doesn't* work well for us, but I'm going to 'ditch' those two 7 Cards today. Either way, we're probably still in the hunt for Victory, but I think the A-2-3 RUN gives us the best hope today.

Oh, was there a FLUSH option, too?! (At least I'm no longer seeing four Deuces of Clubs show up ; - )

   

Wednesday 12:22 PM

I think its between A-2-3-9 (7-7) and A-7-7-9 (2-3) although I favor A-2-3-9. I agree with james500 that the flush is a red herring but I'll examine it anyway:

A-2-3-9: 5pts + 5¾pts (Schell: 5.92) = 10¾pts

A-7-7-9: 4pts + 6¾pts (Schell: 7.00) = 10¾pts

2-3-7-9: 4pts + 3¾pts (Schell: 3.85) = 7¾pts

Potential:

A-2-3-9: Improves with AAA, 222, 333, 4444, 5555, 6666, 999 + 16xXs = 40 cuts = 87.0% up to 8/12/14pts with AAA, 222, 333, 4444 = 13 cuts.

A-7-7-9: Improves with AAA, 5555, 6666, 77, 8888, 999 = 20 cuts = 20/46 = 43.5% up to 8/12/14pts with AAA, 77, 8888 = 9 cuts.

2-3-7-9: Improves with AAA, 222, 333, 4444, 5555, 6666, 77, 8888, 999 + 16xXs = 46 cuts = 46/46 = 100.0% up to 8/9/10pts with AAA, 333, 4444, 6666, 8888 = 18 cuts. Plus 9 diamonds for an extra 1pt for the flush = 9/46 = 0.20pt.

Pegging:

I think both A-2-3-9 and 2-3-7-9 will peg well. Perhaps A-2-3-9 best but the flush will be harder to read.

Position:

We're already past 3rd street CPZ and Pone needs 14pts to reach 96pts so I'll play cautiously for the pegging.

Summary:

Although the flush has the most cuts for improvement it has a much lower maximum and it starts with 3pts less so I think we can excluse this. A-2-3-9 has twice as many cuts for improvement as A-7-7-9 and more cuts for 8-14pts. So certainly I think A-2-3-9 is better and I'll throw 7-7.

   

Wednesday 12:41 PM

At 76*-82 playing an Optimal strategy for the pegging the dynamic expected averages and Win/Loss %s are:

_______________Net
Optimal___Hand_Pegs_Crib_Total____W3 %____W4 %
A-2-3-9___8.07+1.57+5.76=15.39____34.3____50.4
A-7-7-9___5.96+0.30+6.87=13.14____27.3____49.5
2-3-7-9___7.35+1.28+3.59=12.22____20.5____40.3

Optimal_______L3 %____L4 %
A-2-3-9_______35.0____35.2
A-7-7-9_______29.8____36.7
2-3-7-9_______36.4____47.9

A-2-3-9 is best for expected averages by 1.25pt and is significantly best for Win %s and although A-7-7-9 is much lower for Loss %s I'll select 7-7 to discard.

After the 2 cut I'll play Defense to the lead.

   

Wednesday 1:17 PM

This is the post for yesterday's puzzle if anyone is interested. Apologies for inept human operator:

At 0*-0 playing A Defense strategy for the pegging the dynamic expected averages and Win/Loss %s are:

________________Pone's
Defense___Hand__Pegs___Crib_Total___W9 %____W10 %
3-6-6-10__5.43+(-1.98)+5.33=8.78____32.1____46.6
A-3-4-10__4.87+(-2.04)+5.66=8.49____32.6____45.1
3-4-6-6___6.91+(-1.93)+3.24=8.22____31.5____44.4

Defense______L9 %____L10 %
3-6-6-10_____24.9____26.6
A-3-4-10_____27.8____28.9
3-4-6-6______26.6____28.9

3-6-6-10 is 0.29pt best for expected averages and is slightly best for Win %s and loss %s which both take account of the board position. So I'll select A-4 to discard.

After the J cut I'll play Defense to the lead.

   

Wednesday 1:56 PM

Think HalscribCLX has it just right today playing optimal, optimal, and defense. Just go with the flow on this hand; looks like ought to hold A-2-3-9 and toss 7-7. So be it. After seeing the deuce on the deck, knowing that RAS has a guaranteed peg, 12 points in hand, and a known two points in crib, will attempt to minimize opponent movement down the board by playing off. If no pegs except for that dealer peg, will be at hole 91. Coeurdelion shows the averages for 7-7 from several sources. Good stuff! Comparing the 7-7 with 8-8 to own crib, Hypothetically as those choices don't exist here today, the 7-7 5.783 (1.372) 13/91 scores two points 22.011%, scores 3-7 34.914% , tallies 8-11 27.259%, and reaches 12 or more 15.816%. The 8-8 5.496 (1,501) 20/91 scores 2 points 30.313%, scores 3-7 35.91%, tallies 8-11 21.452%, and reaches 12 or more 12.325%. The 7-7 has the edge because the Ace does make 15-2 as pointed out by Jazzselke above and 8-K, 8-Q, or 8-J are rather frequent discards while many folks avoid the 7 with any card to dealer crib. Thoughts?