Wednesday 3:12 AM

A greater no of helpful cuts for 2-3-4-9 (5-9h), but an extra pre-cut point for 2-4-9-9 (3-5).

The 5 seems wasted in 2-3-4-5 (9-9) where it's only worth a single point.

   

Wednesday 3:38 AM

Strongest pegging hand with lots of low cards but not one long run. Have an 11 for 31-2 following e.g. k9q2

99 to crib not great and 5 not doing much in our hand. 35 better in crib but 2 9s not too clever for pegging here.

   

Wednesday 3:42 AM

Prefer the 5-9 to the 9-9 here-the 2-3-4-9 allows us great pegging flexibility-offensive pegging should be the course of the day today

   

Wednesday 3:45 AM

Like Rob, I prefer the 5-9. With my opponent already at 73 I’ll peg offensively.

   

Wednesday 3:53 AM

I'll be the odd woman out this morning. I like this hand for offense and every cut increases the value of these cards.

   

Wednesday 4:06 AM

Need a few tricks at our disposal whether it be a dozen possibility in our hand or pegging offensively here. Three hearts in our crib now by the way. I am to believe the pegging has to be more offensive now. dec

   

Wednesday 4:27 AM

We are the First player to become the Dealer at or beyond Hole 70, which is the Third Street 'target' or 'par' hole in Positional Cribbage. But what does this MEAN?

Basically, it means that before we look at our cards, that by dealing from Hole 70 (before our Opponent does so) that we have approximately a 50% chance of reaching the Finish Line or Hole 121 during two more CYCLES of play (see my lengthy description from a few days ago regarding CYCLES, "Three Counts," and "Twenty-Six Theory"). Suffice it to say here that 70 plus 26 plus 26 equals 122.

But we have a lot of board left, and as I mentioned, this prediction can be made *before* we look at our cards; and all it really means is that we're "on track" to achieve the above about 50% of the time; it means not much else.

Some players would translate this into a comment such as, "We're Winning" (I'd rather say we're "NOT Losing" but it's difficult to discern the difference, I'll admit). I think we might agree that it means we probably would not swap positions with our Opponent, even though we do appear to be trailing by an 'absolute' number of Three Holes.

And so, let us look at our cards! We have this wonderful dilemma of whether to retain the "Long" RUN of Keep (2 3 4 5) and 'stash' the plain Toss (9 9) into our Crib, or we could instead Keep (2 3 4 9) and Toss (5 9) today. Clearly, one choice ought to be better than the other!

We could also maybe examine Toss (3 5), super-charging Our Crib, with also an apparently-good Hand, but at the expense of the future GROWTH of Our Hand, since only 'same-ranking' Cuts would greatly boost (2 4 9 9).

Retaining the 5 Card "in hand" adds an immediate One Point to said Hand, and it stashes Two Points in the form of a PAIR into Our Crib. However, after Toss (5 9), we retain an extra (15-2) or Two Points "in hand," and we place a 5 Card into Our Crib, which shall reliably ALWAYS generate Two Points in some kind of future fashion.

This means that either Toss (5 9) or Toss (3 5) looks to possibly be at least EQUAL on BOTH fronts! But after Toss (9 9), we could generate a much better Hand and/or Crib after certain Cuts. As far as pegging, I see a small but reliable advantage with Keep (2 3 4 5) today.

If we were backed into a DEFENSIVE posture here, I might easily Toss (5 9) or Toss (3 5) and 'hedge' a bit, but I don't yet see the need to become too entrenched in a DEFENSIVE mindset while sitting atop Hole 70. There are relative scores in which Toss (5 9) or Toss (3 5) would perhaps be superior, but I don't believe this to be one of them.

Thus, let's Keep (2 3 4 5) and Toss (9 9), and Keep It Simple, and not shock those players standing behind us, at least not just yet! We should try to respond from our three-card "Magic Eleven" of (2 4 5) after either a "Dime" or Nickel" lead by Pone, and that's trivial after any Ten Card (or "X"), since we'll simply grab the easy (15=2); but after a 5 Card Lead, we should probably play our Deuce in order to *still* have the running tally optimized for also later possibly reaching (31=2).

   

Wednesday 4:40 AM

Went with the run.

   

Wednesday 5:11 AM

I chanced the 99 to keep the potential for a 12 hand. Every starter helps. The problem with keeping one or both of the 9s is the hand gets reduced to 5 points or you give away a 5.

Do I lead the 2 or the 3? If I lead the 2, I can probably get a 15-2 right away. The 3 lead would scare away any 5 reply.

   

Wednesday 5:13 AM

The 2-3-4-5 sequence is a good choice for the dealer as it repsresents nearly four potential pegs, increases in value with any cut, and doubles with the cut of any of those X-pointers. At hole 70, with opponent already at hole 73, there is nothing to defend. It's got to be off., off., off. from the outset. Move down the board with passion. You can do that "deadpan" also. Will play on the lead alhtough would pass up pairing a five if led.

   

Wednesday 5:23 AM

At 70 On my deal, I need to get as far down the board as I can. Every cut helps this hand and I should be able to pick up a few pegs

   

Wednesday 5:56 AM

I like this hold at this position today slightly better than 5-9. Improvement on every cut and four strong pegging cards to work with. Often find pone tossing a stray 6 into our crib (6-K, 6-Q, 6-10), which would be a nice help there. Will peg aggressively and pair a 2,3, or 4 lead. 5 or 6 lead would play the 2 to keep my remaining cards touching. 7 or 8 lead would play the 3. 9 lead would play the 2. Any face would play the 5 for 15-2.

   

Wednesday 6:31 AM

The choice was between tossing 9-9 and 5-9. Keep the run ..toss 9-9..and 46 cards can help my hand . I read with interest all the comments....particularly from two VERY experienced players ...Rob & Ras...and say to myself what a challenging game cribbage is !

   

Wednesday 7:00 AM

2345 has starting value of 6**, low crib (pot)ential good pegging pot, hight cut pot. 2499 has starting value of 8, some hope in the crib, but low cut pot. 2349 starting value of 7, some hope in the crib, and cut pot somewhere between previous two options. So 2349 is my compromise/hedged choice.
**Did I see/hear somewhere that the 5 in my hand will be worth 1 more point by the time we are done scoring?

   

Wednesday 7:12 AM

I prefer the 5 in my crib vs the single point in my hand. Plus, I prefer 5-9 over 9-9 in my crib. The cut of K appears to give us a total of 4 points - glad I didn't toss the 9-9 with that K cut!

   

Wednesday 7:19 AM

Held this hand in a playoff much and was questioned on the hold by 2 experienced players. My thinking was great pegging hand: a magic 11. with a 34 left for a possible 5 trap. I do see benefits of retaining either 2345 and 2499, although I still prefer the 2349. But I think it's a close call between all 3 options, which is why I posted the puzzle.

   

Wednesday 9:53 AM

Although all the starter cards will help this hand, I feel that I may have put myself at a slight disadvantage. The pegging potential is good if the pone has cards of similar rank, but I did not leave myself either an escapes card, or a card to push the play value. I have probably given the pone a "go", or worse a chance to put a run together. OOOOOPS !!

   

Wednesday 12:21 PM

Offense to the cut, 86+ is the goal.

   

Wednesday 3:04 PM

I think it's between 2-3-4-9 (5-9H) and 2-3-4-5 (9-9):

2-3-4-9S: 5pts + 5¼pts (Schell: 5.43) = 10¼pts

2-3-4-5: 4pts + 5¼pts (Schell: 5.16) = 9¼pts

Potential:

2-3-4-9S: Improves with AAAA, 222, 333, 444, 555, 6666, 8888, 99 + 16xXs = 42 cuts = 42/46 = 91.3% up to 8/9/12pts with AAAA, 222, 333, 444, 6666, 99 = 19 cuts.

2-3-4-5: Improves with AAAA, 222, 333, 444, 555, 6666, 7777, 8888, 99 + 16xXs = 46 cuts = 46/46 = 100.0% up to 7/8/9/10/12pts with AAAA, 222, 333, 444, 555, 6666, 8888 + 16xXs = 40 cuts.

Position:

We're at third street positional hole and Pone is three points past it. I need to keep moving but also want to hold opponent back so I'll peg optimally.

Pegging:

Both hands will peg well but playing cautiously I think I prefer 2-3-4-9. It has a magic eleven and 3 low cards and a high card.

Summary:

2-3-4-9S has the better starting value by 1pt and although it is not guaranteed improvement it has a high number of cuts for improvement. However, 2-3-4-5 has guaranteed improvement has 40 cuts for 7-12pts and will peg well playing Offense but will be harder to defend with. Will it catch up the 1pt? I think it will so I'll throw 9-9.

   

Wednesday 3:10 PM

At 70*-73 playing an Offense strategy for the pegging the dynamic expected averages and Win/Loss %s are:

_______________Our
Offense___Hand_Pegs_Crib_Total____W3 %____W4 %
2-3-4-5____8.65+3.96+5.02=17.63____12.9____48.1
2-3-4-9S___8.09+3.46+5.51=17.06____11.0____46.7
2-4-9-9____7.59+2.78+5.87=16.24_____9.8____45.2

Offense_______L3 %____L4 %
2-3-4-5________8.7_____30.3
2-3-4-9S_______8.3_____31.4
2-4-9-9________5.8_____29.2

2-3-4-5 is best for expected averages by 0.57pt and is appreciably best for Win %s. 2-4-9-9 is lowest for Loss %s but even so I'll select 9-9 to discard.

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

   

Wednesday 4:39 PM