Saturday 3:00 AM

We are the Dealer, almost side-by-side with our Opponent, on the tail end of Second Street. If we were playing Noddy instead of Cribbage, this would now be an Endgame Battle, and we might be sitting inside a pub in London in 1591, while someone named William Shakespeare was writing his very first play!

ENGLAND -- (July 1591): Queen Elizabeth sent an English force under the command of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, to support Henry IV of France's siege of Rouen. The English had no successes.

This was the OG! Queen Elizabeth, the Original, Daughter of King Henry VIII, later dubbed Elizabeth I, who would die in March 1603. Never Married. Also often dubbed the Virgin Queen.

Some say that she may have died of blood poisoning, brought on by her use of lead-based makeup, which was classified as a poison thirty-one years after her death. What she didn't die from was playing Cribbage, as it wouldn't be adapted from Noddy and brought into existence by Sir John Suckling (English Poet, born 1609, in Whitton, A Scoundrel and a Thief, Died at age thirty-two, probably by poison) for yet another two decades!

The game of "Noddy," (or "Niddy-Noddy," or "Knave Noddy") from which Cribbage was derived, originated in 1550s England, and was sometimes scored on a board that typically had thirty holes up one side or "street," with Hole 31 declaring the winner in a "short" game, and then thirty holes to get back, in which Hole 61 determined the winner in a "long" game.

There is no Crib in Noddy, and in the original game, each player gets Three Cards, not Four. Later, a Four-Card Noddy was developed. The board used for scoring was later also used for Cribbage, and since the mid-1600s, it is primarily known as a Cribbage Board. Ironically however, the board that was used by both games actually pre-dates even the game of Noddy, and in fact Noddy was frequently played with no board at all!

Let's move forward half a millennium, if you don't mind, and get back to Cribbage and our "Hand of the Day Puzzle"! We hold the infamous 3-4-5 Run as the Dealer, and I call it "infamous" because when we are the Dealer, any RUN that either begins with a 5 Card or ends with a 5 Card is "ripe for pruning" in my opinion, and we should look for any way(s) to get that 5 Card into our Crib!

Let's outline several of our options: We could Toss (5 8), Toss (5 Q), Toss (A 8), or Toss (A Q). My "gut" inclination is to Toss (5 Q), but perhaps Toss (A 8) also has some merit.

If we Keep (3 4 5 Q) and Toss (A 8), we begin with a 'static' Five Points in our Hand, and an interesting variety in our Crib. But we should quickly notice that if we instead Keep (3 4 5 8) and Toss (A Q), we do have the "Magic Eleven" in the form of 3-8 in our hand, and this is probably worth investigating, in spite of the slightly-inferior discard.

If we Keep (A 3 4 8) and Toss (5 Q), now we have a 'static' Two Points in our Hand, with at least Two Points 'stashed away' in our Crib. This is One Point LESS than our earlier ideas, but it is also a much better "balance" of our resources, a facet of the game that is often crucial when we are the Dealer. Now, we hold not just the aforementioned "Magic Eleven" of 3-8, but the "whole enchilada" of a four-card "Sweet Sixteen" as well! Let me elaborate for some of the newer players:

A "Magic Eleven" aims to have us reach or "hit" a Count of Thirty-One "on the nose" after Pone leads any of the ubiquitous Ten (or "X") Cards, in which we can first respond with our 8 Card, bringing the Count safely above Fifteen, and then, after another "X" Card, we can 'plunk down' (technical term) our Trey for (31=2). This often works even if the other player is holding a 5 Card as well.

The "Sweet Sixteen" works in many instances in which the 5 Card held by the other player might otherwise thwart us. If we have Keep (A 3 4 8), and Pone again leads an "X" Card, we bring the Count to Eighteen; and now, Pone may try to "dump" the 5 Card, making the Count equal to Twenty-Three. Here, we play our 4 Card, and after we hear the "sweet sound of 'go'" we play our Trey and Ace, and score both a Run-of-Three and a Thirty-One for (31=5)!

After all that work explaining the "Magic Eleven" and the "Sweet Sixteen" to some of our newer players, I would probably be remiss if I didn't Keep (A 3 4 8) and Toss (5 Q)! But Toss (A 8) looks to be just as good, and Toss (A Q) isn't so bad, either. But DO NOT BE AFRAID to 'bust up' a RUN with a 5 Card in it when we are the Dealer!

After the King Cut, we have Four Points in our Hand, and we can look forward to at least another Four Points (and probably more) in our Crib.

   

Saturday 3:08 AM

Like this hold for a couple reasons-we are open to the bingo cut of a 4 and the pegging flexibility of the magic eleven while retaining our 5 for the next series-we can’t afford to be giving pone any pegs here at 58

   

Saturday 3:17 AM

With a 4 and 5 out of circulation, I have more hope for A-8 in my crib than I would for A-Q.

Every cut bar a 9 is immediately helpful.

   

Saturday 5:51 AM

Was torn, so voted for how I typically play it. That said - have a sneaky suspicion that breaking up the run (toss Q5) is probably better when factoring in pegging in a spot like this.

   

Saturday 6:09 AM

This seemed too easy, which usually means I’ve missed the obvious…

   

Saturday 6:26 AM

This is normally the way I will still play it in a similar situation, though I admit, I might vary things up and occasionally get that (5 Q) into my crib here (knowing the playing style of certain opponents of mine), though I am technically sacrificing one point initially and busting up the run. But more often than not, I will play it straight up and keep my points. I am not interested in giving pone much in the way of pegs here, and I really don't want to be pairing an opening 3 or 4 lead if I can avoid it. Although (A 8) is a superior crib throw, holding the 8 rather than the Q may be a little better for handling the potential pegging dilemma in some of these situations if you are intent on holding pone off the board, thus (A Q) would also come into consideration. But I prefer either toss (A 8) or (5 Q) to this option.

   

Saturday 7:14 AM

56*-58…72-68*…98-94*…108*-110….So what to do with the five as part of a run? If I keep 3-4-5-Q together I start with five and only a nine cut doesn’t work for points. The crib will suffer with either A-8 or A-Q. However, I may very well learn something today about Fives and runs. Another thing, with this board position very careful pegging here.

   

Saturday 7:23 AM

Comes down to what I would rather in my crib, the A8 or the AQ. A8 at least has a chance get some help.

Murky and humid in Northern Massachusetts. They say it will hit over 90 today, but I wonder about that.

   

Saturday 7:32 AM

At 56 v 58 we are in neutral territory for pegging strategy. A run of 3 and a 15 for two is not glamourous nor has tremendous upside potential. Not sexy but looks like the best play

   

Saturday 9:23 AM

three or four cut and eleven count on the pegging. dec

   

Saturday 9:40 AM

I went with the majority. I think we will learn a good lesson before the day is out.

   

Saturday 12:12 PM

I broke the run and put Q-5 in my crib to keep what looks to be a nice pegging hand with the 11 and 16. Going fishing for a K-10 or Q-10 pone discard.

Saturday 8:35 PM

Don't know if anybody will learn a lesson this day as many on this site are qualified to teach the class. The key is potential crib score. The best pegging hand among these is 3-4-5-8, and particularly so if choosing an offense strategy. At hole 56, offense to include the pegging is the need. The problem with holding 3-4-5-8 is the miserly small crib one can expect. A-Q to own crib averages 3.504, and less in this case since am holding a four spot - so the average drops to 3.344. Now that 5-Q shines in the crib with an 6.593 and 45% of those cribs are of 8 points or more. BTW 5-J, 5-K, and 5-10 do even better. Combined values (pegs, potential hand and crib scores) favor A-3-4-8 by .3 of point.. No post from HalscribCLX at this point. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Play it this way. Try it - you'll like it!