Friday 3:04 AM

I went for game cuts. I would like to trap some pegging points and get closer and survive their counts now. dec

   

Friday 3:31 AM

sorta gotta in this situation. Looking for a 3,4 or 6 starter for the win. A swing and a miss. Too late to play defense, and I don't see any path for victory except leading the 4 and hoping the dealer blunders by getting into a pegging battle.

   

Friday 3:32 AM

Need a favourable cut.

   

Friday 3:39 AM

We need Fifteen Points in order to WIN, which is Five Points above Pone average. Meanwhile, the Dealer needs just a Dozen Points to defeat us, which is Four Points BELOW the Dealer Average.

After Keep (4 4 5 T) and Toss (7 8), there are Four Cuts (6666) that will yield a Dozen Points or more, and all Four of these (6666) will actually yield Fourteen Points;

After Keep (4 4 7 8) and Toss (5 T), there are Five Cuts (44, 777) that will yield a Dozen Points or more, and Two of these (44) will yield Fourteen Points;

After Keep (4 4 5 7) and Toss (8 T), there are Six Cuts (44, 6666) that will yield a Dozen Points or more, and Four of these (6666) will yield Fourteen Points. 🎯

Keep (4 4 5 8) logically cannot be any better than Keep (4 4 5 7), and so: we're done.

It PAYS to do the work! Let's Toss (8 T) and dig deep for that 6 Card Cut! Still, it's likely that we have only about a 12% to 15% chance of winning, but this beats all of our other choices by far.

After the awful King Cut, we have only Six Points in our Hand. Let's lead the 7 Card and try to peg as much of those Nine Points we need in order to WIN, simply in an attempt to reduce those Spread Points by which we LOSE.

   

Friday 4:51 AM

This score requires maximum offense, I think most everyone will agree, because we must either count out now, or get as near the game hole as possible to peg out as dealer next hand. Even if this comes at a great risk, in that we might fall short, and then opponent counts out on this deal, we don’t have any choice but to gamble, because even if we do hold opponent short, we’re almost sure to lose unless we get to at least, say, 117* ourselves.

Given the difficulty of pegging even 1 or 2 points as pone when opponent is on max defense, I wanted at least 10 points and preferably more like 12. These sorts of discards are, at least for me, very tricky in a real game, because I’m used to discarding for a high overall score, not for performance at the right side of the histogram, and the pressure tends to muddle my brains.

Looking at things cut-by-cut, this looks like the way to go. I want to say I’d pick this in a real game, but who knows. Keep 4478 has a couple more cuts for 10+, but 8T is obv a safer crib toss, and even though our own scoring is the most important, when it comes down to a couple of cuts, 5T vs 8T makes 8T look best, and this keep is better for scoring 12+ anyway.

The game seems unwinnable after that cut. Cashing in the fours wouldn't score enough. Lead the four to keep the 457 together and who knows? It's hard to imagine a scenario where we win, though.

Another really nice puzzle from luke3141. Would love to see more comments from someone who finds such clever discard problems!

The biggest thing I hopefully learned from yesterday’s puzzle is not to underestimate offensive capability. In my mind, I thought that a keep like A223, even if it got us near the next par, would tend to create a tricky, all-out offense game, by pushing opponent too far up for there to be such good hopes in the back, where playing cautiously would create conditions for a defensive trajectory which is easier to win. But between the bot, and so many stronger players going the other way, this was for sure a pseudopositional call on my part, the sort of thing that has hurt my playing for as long as I’ve been posting here (though maybe I’m not as bad in this respect as I was in 2017).

   

Friday 5:59 AM

JQT says it for me. Fingers crossed for a 6 cut

   

Friday 6:01 AM

First it is nice to see new names submitting puzzles.I encourage all voters to do so. Next..who knew Gougie00 was a wordsmith?.. “sorta gotta” has the potential to become a cribbage theorem . It works for me today.

   

Friday 6:15 AM

Odds are very small to win this, but I might as well keep the hand that gives me a chance to win this on a few cuts. I can score a max of 14 by keeping (4 4 5 7) and needing 1 pegging pt to win. The odds of holding dealer to under 12 points I believe are about 1/8, but I stand corrected if this is wrong. This is all or nothing. If we don't have a chance to win after the cut (such as today), we should likely try to minimize spread points, as we would end up only at hole 112 without any pegs, which is still a far cry from peg-out range assuming dealer fails to count out this hand.

   

Friday 6:22 AM

Do or die, will be lucky to survive this deal if we don't hit. Only other hand that might make sense is 4478. Might lead the 7 and opponent could respond with a 4.

   

Friday 6:53 AM

’m used to looking at where the pegs are on the board and the numbers don’t give me such a clear picture. I started going down the wrong path in deciding what to throw.

True to the game, these are the difficult hands you must deal with in cribbage. The situation is you need 15 while the dealer only needs to prevent you from getting 15 so he can count his hand and crib for 12, which is below average. You are in a position where you need to win on this hand. If the dealer counts the crib, you will in all likelihood lose.

I started to say you have a choice of loading up the crib or destroying your hand. The reality is that you need to win before the dealer counts so it’s time for taking a chance that can get you to the finish line or within reasonable pegging distance.

Unless the dealer is incompetent, you won’t peg 6 points for 3 fours so pegging is no incentive to keep the 4’s, but there may be other reasons. The throw that gives you the best chance of winning this game is the 7-8. The 6 cut will max your hand at 14 so you’ll need to peg 1 to win. You have lots of room to give up pegging to make this 1 peg so that’s good. The bad thing is there are only 4 cards that give you a good chance to win.

Throwing the 10-5 also gives you a chance at 14, but you hold 2 of the 4’s that will get you there. The 7 will get you to 12, which gives you a chance to peg enough (3) so this is a possibility as well. Other cuts leave you 4 or more away and I wouldn’t count on pegging 4 but I would welcome a pegging war in this hand. I don’t see a better option, so I’ll throw the 10-5 and pray for the 13% chance at a cut to come through.

   

Friday 7:50 AM

Great puzzle - this sort of situation happens all the time in real play. I went with the majority opinion, hoping for that 14 point hand!

   

Friday 8:37 AM

I am not willing to help the dealer go out without a much better chance of my own.

   

Friday 1:21 PM

It's all been said before. Lead the 7.

   

Friday 2:26 PM

I think it may be between 4-4-5-7 (8-10) and the defensive 4-4-5-8 (7-10). I don't see that 4-4-5-10 can be better than 4-4-5-7:

4-4-5-7: 4pts - 4¾pts (Schell: 5.10) = -¾pt

4-4-5-8: 2pts - 4¼pts (Schell: 4.31) = -2¼pts

Potential:

4-4-5-7: Improves with 2222, 3333, 44, 555, 6666, 777, 888 + 15xXs = 38 cuts = 38/46 = 82.6% up to 8/12/16pts with 3333, 44, 6666, 777 = 13 cuts.

4-4-5-8: Improves with 2222, 3333, 44, 555, 6666, 777, 888 + 15xXs = 38 cuts = 38/46 = 82.6% up to 6/12pts with 3333, 44, 6666, 777 = 13 cuts.

Position:

We need 15pts to go out while Dealer only needs 12pts so I think we must play all out Offense.

Pegging:

I think 4-4-5-7 may peg slightly better playing Offense.

Summary:

4-4-5-7 is better for starting value by 1½pts and it has 4 cuts to get us straight out (6666) and 6 cuts for 12pts (3333, 44) needing to peg 3pts. 4-4-5-8 has 6 cuts for 12pts (3333, 6666) needing to peg the 3pts but the 7-10 throw gives us a better chance of making it go to another deal. Even so I'll play the all out Offense and throw the 8-10.

   

Friday 2:31 PM

At 106-109* playing an Offense strategy for the pegging the Win/Loss %s are:

Offense____________Win %________Loss %
4-4-5-7_____________15.8_________73.5
4-4-5-10____________10.5_________83.2
4-4-5-8______________9.1_________66.8

4-4-5-7 is considerably best for Win %s and although it is higher for Loss %s than 4-4-5-8 as I'm recommending an Offense strategy I'll select 8-10 to discard.

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

Lead_____________Our Pegging Points
4_______________________1.90
7_______________________1.46
5_______________________0.99