Sunday 3:05 AM

What's this seeming obsession with 9 Cards lately?!

It's reminiscent of that old, 1968 Beatles Song, "Revolution 9," whose lyrics go: "Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine..."

Oh, we spot a FLUSH in there, as well. The plot doth thicken.

The problem here is that if we do not Keep (2c 3c 5c 9c) and Toss (9 9), what, pray tell, do we do?

What Cut Card does NOT help the FLUSH? That's an exercise for the reader. Meanwhile, I'll Toss (9 9) in less than a heartbeat.

Since we have a Fender Bass in our little group here, today's musical selection harkens back to my teenage 'daze' of listening to the Jeff Beck Group and classic albums like "Truth" and one later released in 1972 now known as The Orange Album, with blues classics on it such as "Going Down."

One of Beck's classic songs from a later album titled "Blow by Blow" is a song 'in the key of love and lamenting,' C-minor, which was composed originally by Stevie Wonder and somewhat inauspiciously called, "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" in 1974. Wonder's former wife, Syreeta Wright, even performed the song with the original lyrics in 1974. Jeff Beck released "Blow by Blow" and stripped the song of its lyrics, and recorded "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" with a credit to his friend, Stevie, just a year later, in 1975. Syreeta died at age fifty-seven in 2004. The song lives on.

About three decades and one year later after "Blow by Blow," perhaps in an effort to see just how much guitar talent a single stage could support, Jeff Beck invited an Australian Sensation, a young (barely age twenty-one at the time) guitar player and singer, Tal Wilkenfeld, to join him and play live in concert, including the very difficult and critically-important bass guitar solo section of this now-classic song. (That's a little bit like allowing a Little League star female player to pitch several innings of a World Series Playoff Game!) At this time, Tal had been concentrating all of her effort on the bass guitar, and for fewer than five years!

And yet she was more than up to the task.

Entire performances with Tal, and the original "Blow by Blow" album with all of its songs, are all easily found online; and both the new and old, it's ALL material very much worth listening to and watching today.

The video of this particular song performance itself appears to have been superbly reprocessed and rendered in order to almost appear as if it's in high-definition, which was not even available at the time, as I believe it was in 2008 when this was recorded. The older, grainier version has over 8 million views, but I like how the video was improved in this more-recently posted version.

We can only imagine the discussion the smiling, young, effervescent, curly-haired Aussie girl's parents had with their then twenty-one-year-old daughter, who years earlier had dropped out of high school at age fourteen, in order to concentrate on learning to better play the guitar: "Did you say he was forty-two?" and then, as she prepared to leave the Australian Continent, she must have replied, "No, mom, he's forty-two years OLDER than I am."

If you enjoy instrumental rock guitar music with a jazz-fusion synthesis, and if you've not seen this performance before, you're in for a real treat: https://youtu.be/25q8nWZQGaQ

   

Sunday 3:21 AM

Do you recommend that I lead something from the 9-5-2 sixteen, or play the 3 which is covered by the 2 and the 9 if their reply is an X or another 3?

   

Sunday 4:00 AM

Keep the flush points. The nine lead will elicit sometimes a King or Queen response also. dec

   

Sunday 5:45 AM

Keeping the flush today. Every cut will improve our hand and I much rather toss 9-9 vs 2-3.

   

Sunday 6:20 AM

The crib still might go *BOOM* but 99 seems the least dangerous. Lead the 3

   

Sunday 6:30 AM

"As" with the crowd above..I recently did have this starting hand on a game of e-cribbage, and I could see no way out other than to toss (9 9)...At least there is no cut which will not improve this hand, thought it might be somewhat embarrassing if a 6 or 9 gets cut. Would I even consider starting with 6 pts and tossing anything else?? Certainly not (2 3). Briefly thought about the oil and water toss of (2 5), which is what I WOULD have tossed if you had replaced the 9 of CLUBS with the 9 of DIAMONDS..In that case, I will start with 6 points rather than NO points. As for the opening lead, I have a preference for the 3, because of all the responsed which are covered although it is not from the sweet 6 group of 2-5-9. If I did not lead the 3, my next choice would be the 9 from this group of three.

   

Sunday 7:12 AM

Pairs are an interesting aspect to this game of ours. Across the board 11/13 average 6+. But since this is an average they can earn just two or a lot more than six. Today I see no better alternative than 9-9. Also, it leaves a keep that gets cut help from 13/13 ranks.

   

Sunday 7:35 AM

Pretty easy choice

   

Sunday 7:55 AM

It's our opening hand as pone and it looks like there are a few different options. The main ones seem to be: (1) keep the triple 9 (for 6 points with +6 on 6 or A/3/4 cut), (2) keep the flush (for 4 points with +4 on any ten cut and +6 on a 4 cut) or (3) to throw something safe away like a (2 9) or (3 9).

If we were desparate to score big, I think (1) makes the most sense. And if you wanted to score really big, why not keep (3 9 9 9) and cut a 3! After the cut, (2)'s score very consistently improves and (9 9) isn't the worst pair to give to our opponent especially if we can dodge 6's and (7 8). For option (3), we give very little to the dealer's crib but we also leave very little for ourselves. If I wanted to defend option (3), which I don't, I would say that we should begin the process of slowing down the dealer as early as possible to try get a positional advantage. But, of course, that only works if we're getting score of our own.

From the playing side, keeping the flush is nice with a wide variety of numbers. And we have a pleasant 3 lead which is backed up by the 9 and 2. However, trying to play devil's advocate, I think that a hand like (3 9 9 9) doesn't give away too many points on the play. Most of the time we're fine and might even get a point or two from a 15 or go.

Overall I like how the flush scores, how it plays and how it looks! It's a shame to give away a pair but it seems to be a necessary evil here since our score needs to get moving.

   

Sunday 7:56 AM

Looks like we have the flush or the three nines to choose from today. If keeping the nines, we have to pick two of 2-3-5 to discard. If there was no flush, it's probably 2-5 and has me feeling a lot worse about this hand.

Instead, we can send over the 9s/9h and keep a minimum of 6 points (all cuts help). Sometimes there are hands where the suit choice of the discard doesn't matter, today that is definitely not the case!

I'll lead the remaining 9 today and aim to pick up any points and move as far down the board as possible.

   

Sunday 10:49 AM

The biggest myth among cribbage experts is that first pone should always play offense reflexively.

With bad cards it is better to play *defense* at 0-0*. The logic is simple: would you rather be at 8*-18 next hand, or 5*-11? Clearly the second position is preferable by far.

If you don't understand why, consider the analogous third/fourth street positions. Would you rather be at 86*-96 or 83*-89? This is basic 26/25 theory and the second position has substantially better odds of winning.

Now, there is something to the notion that, this early in the game, position should not be given excessive weight. But with these cards the 9-9 is simply not worth it.

   

Sunday 11:13 AM

99 OFf YOU GO. WILL NOT TOSS A 5 FROM THIS HAND. WIL NOT TOSS 2-3 FROM THIS HAND. ALL OTHER EQUALY UNPALATABLE. LEFT WITH 99. EVERY CUT HELPS. LEAD THE 3.

   

Sunday 1:53 PM

I think it's between 2-3-5-9C (9-9) and 5-9-9-9 (2-3) plus 2-9-9-9 (3-5) and 3-9-9-9 (2-5):

2-3-5-9C: 4pts - 6¼pts (Schell: 6.39) = -2¼pts

5-9-9-9: 6pts - 7½pts (Schell: 7.33) = -1½pts

2-9-9-9: 6pts - 6¾pts (Schell: 6.78) = -¾pt

3-9-9-9: 6pts - 6¼pts (Schell: 6.11) = -¼pt

Potential:

2-3-5-9C: Improves with AAAA, 222, 333, 4444, 555, 6666, 7777, 8888, 9 + 16xXs = 46 cuts = 46/46 = 100.0% up to 8/10/11pts with AAAA, 333, 4444, 555 + 16xXs = 30 cuts. Plus 9 clubs for 1pt extra for the flush = 9/46 = 0.20pt.

5-9-9-9: Improves with AAAA, 555, 6666, 9 + 16xXs = 28 cuts = 28/46 = 60.9% up to 12pts with AAAA, 6666, 9 = 9 cuts.

2-9-9-9: Improves with 222, 4444, 6666, 9 = 12 cuts = 12/46 = 26.1% up to 12pts with 4444, 6666, 9 = 9 cuts.

3-9-9-9: Improves with 333, 6666, 9 = 8 cuts = 8/46 = 17.4% up to 12/14pts with all cuts.

Position:

As First Pone I'll play Offense and try to reach positional hole at 18pts or more.

Pegging:

2-3-5-9C should peg best playing Offense and will be hard to read.

Summary:

3-9-9-9 has the best starting value by 2pts over the flush. However 2-3-5-9C has guaranteed improvement and 30 cuts for 8-11pts. Also it has an extra 0.20pt potential for a club cut plus it should peg very well. So I think it may well catch up the 2pts therefore I'll throw 9S-9H.

   

Sunday 2:09 PM

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

_______________Our
Offense___Hand_Pegs__Crib___Total___W9 %____W10 %
2-3-5-9C___7.93+2.07+(-5.89)=4.11____27.9____22.8
3-9-9-9____7.17+1.20+(-6.38)=1.99____22.9____19.8
3-5-9-9*___4.43+1.46+(-4.29)=1.60____21.3____20.7
2-5-9-9*___4.26+1.59+(-4.26)=1.59____19.4____19.0
5-9-9-9____8.00+0.98+(-7.48)=1.50____24.1____18.7
2-9-9-9____7.30+0.87+(-7.01)=1.16____22.0____18.1

Offense______L9 %____L10 %
2-3-5-9C______42.8____53.0
3-9-9-9_______40.8____54.9
3-5-9-9*______36.6____52.2
2-5-9-9*______37.3____53.8
5-9-9-9_______44.6____57.1
2-9-9-9_______42.8____57.1

* unsuited discard

2-3-5-9C is best for expected averages by 2.12pts and is very much best for Win %s and although it is quite high for Loss %s I'll select 9S-9H to discard.

After the QC cut I'll lead the 9 and play Offense:

Lead__________________Our Pegging Pts.
9__________________________2.08
2__________________________2.03
5__________________________1.90
3__________________________1.87

   

Sunday 3:17 PM

Echo!

   

Sunday 3:18 PM

We all agree.

   

Sunday 9:43 PM

Nice being back although a week with, son, spouse, three grand children and their mates, and 7 precious great-grand children in the mountains of Central Oregon was golden. As n/d of first hand in game, it's off., off., off from the outset. That determines holding the flush which has numerous cuts for improvement for a greater hand value and superior pegging potential. Lead the 9 and take pegs as offered.