Thursday 3:08 AM

I am not pitching 3-5, so my choice is between 5-9 and 9-9.

Thursday 3:15 AM

We are Pone, facing an Opponent who is Ahead and Dealing from right atop the Second Street Par Hole 44.

We were dealt a Four-Card-Run, alongside a PAIR of 9 Cards. It appears that we could either Toss (2 9), Toss (5 9), or Toss (9 9), but I suppose that even Toss (3 5) could be considered.

Four-Card-Runs with 5 Cards in them are special constructs, and almost all of these get help from all cuts (only 4-5-6-7 fails this criterion, and does so after just Four Ace Cuts).

The weakest of these Four-Card-Runs 2-3-4-5 will reach Eight Points or better close to 80% of the time, and for 3-4-5-6 and 4-5-6-7 it will do so over 90% of the time, and for 5-6-7-8 it is 100% of the time!

This makes it possible to retain such Four-Card-Runs when we are Pone, even if we have to throw a High PAIR into the Enemy Crib. "What about a Four-Card-Run with a 5 Card in it alongside Two Jacks?" I hear you ask.

Keep (5 6 7 8) and Toss (J J) might be a tall order, and depending upon our Relative Position, we may wish to 'hedge' with such an arrangement and Toss (8 J) instead. But any other "X" Card PAIR except Jacks should probably end up in the Opponent's Box.

The Expected Value of such Four-Card-Runs that contain a 5 Card range from 8.65 Points for 2-3-4-5, and about One Point more for either 4-5-6-7 or 5-6-7-8, and the stellar Four-Card-Run of them all is 3-4-5-6, which has an Expected Average closer to Ten Points!

This doesn't quite give us immediate blanket permission to Keep (3 4 5 6) and Toss (9 9) as Pone, but it comes very close, and would depend upon the Dealer's Relative Position to our own. Note that if we did Keep (4 5 6 9) and Toss (3 9), that the 9 Card ADDS VALUE to the Hand.

In Four-Card-Runs that contain a 5 Card, this will never be the case with an "X" Card PAIR, as a Fifteen-Two shall always exist with the 5-X duo. We might still wish to jettison the "X" Card PAIR from many of these Four-Card-Runs, especially when it's NOT a PAIR of Jacks. And in today's puzzle, since retaining a 9 Card doesn't add any immediate value to our Hand (as it would if the Four-Card-Run had a 6 Card in it), this makes Toss (9 9) a lot more palatable.

Given no great alternatives, I don't think we should fear Toss (9 9) here, as it allows us to retain the 'gem' of a Four-Card-Run, a Hand that gets help after ANY Cut Card, and gets boosted to Eight Points or more after a whopping Thirty-Six Cuts (222, 333, 444, 555, 6666, 8888, TTTT, JJJJ, QQQQ, KKKK), which is 36/46 equals 0.783, and will therefore occur over 78% of the time.

Let's Toss (9 9) today. The PAIR of 9 Cards only tends to produce a Crib Value that is about Two Points above average, while sending just one 5 Card with any other card will produce a Crib Value that is about Three Points above average or more.

With the Dealer on Second Street, sitting right at "par," Toss (9 9) is slightly remiss in our task of defending, but the fact that it gives us nearly an 80% chance to land an Eight-Point Hand will place our own Front Peg very deep into the Second Street Zone, and such an Offensive Gambit has Defensive Value.

After the Jack Cut, we have Eight Points as calculated earlier; let's lead the Trey, and try to peg as much as possible. 🍞 🥑 🧀 🍃

Wordle 1,174 4/6 (a flooded brook always does)

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Thursday 4:23 AM

Keeping the four card run and not too concerned with the pair of 9s. John above explains very well the great value of these 4-card run hands. I will lead from the bottom of this run with the 2.

Thursday 4:40 AM

Figured this was a trick question. The low card, 4-card run is just too powerful not to toss the 9-9

Thursday 4:47 AM

If you put this situation at 90-94* I would pick different. Here I will keep the run for potential and pegging. Agree two lead. dec

Thursday 4:49 AM

I chose 2-9, with the hope of slowing my opponent a wee bit. They're just ahead of where they'd like to be dealing from, and with my, "help", hopefully they can end this hand just behind where they'd like to be.

Cribbage Pro Scrimmage
5th Sep 2024
🏆Score: 121 to 113
🌋SP: 1480
📅Streak: 12
https://www.cribbagepro.net/scrimmage/236/3333658/1

Hand 1. 2-7
Hand 2. 9-J
Hand 3. A-9
Hand 4. 2-8
Hand 5. J-J
Hand 6. 2-K
Hand 7. 5-K
Hand 8. 2-8
Hand 9. 6sp-9cl_?

Thursday 5:22 AM

I want to assure that I get into solid dealing position to at least Hole 46. The only 2 cuts that add only 2 points are 7 and 9.

Thursday 5:41 AM

I thought about 5-9. I'll keep the 2345 and pray the 99 doesnt go boom in the crib.

Thursday 6:31 AM

I considered 5-9 and 3-5 but I chose 9-9. I’m not afraid of throwing a pair into the pone crib.

Thursday 6:50 AM

Today I decided on a defensive discard because of board position. I see some very strong players went on offense with the four card run keep & 9/9 discard. My thinking was keep the three card run & avoid frequent dealer discards like 7/8..6/9..6/7..6/8..8/9….my keep starts with three points & gets cut help from 13/13 ranks. Although only 3,4,5,6 cut turns the keep into eight points. Upon further review ( NFL starts tonight!) I have to respect the 9/9 camp. I learned something today about board position.

Thursday 7:27 AM

I took the defense route today. Didn’t feel ok tossing 5-9 or 3-5 to the opponent today. Even 9-9 felt a bit too dangerous to me as well, Eolus mentions some common dealer discards involving mid cards, I really want to avoid a double digit crib here! Board position is critical, so we either need to think total defense or total offense. 2-3-4-5 is a superb pegging hand as pone, so tossing 9-9 makes sense if you want to score a few pegs. But to me, I feel more comfortable trying to slow our opponent down rather than speed the game up at this point. Hoping to land around hole 46 or so, and hoping our opponent is ahead by fewer than 10 points after this hand.

Thursday 7:53 AM

With the crowd, and 9/9 usually doesn't yield much

Thursday 12:18 PM

Well, I went fishing with my choice. I am going to be somewhat on an island today, but I really like the 2,3,4,9 combination staying intact. I will lead the deuce and peg anything I can. I am not supper worried....yet about the pone's crib with my toss.

Thursday 1:00 PM

With them at 44 already I want to play some defense and also score some points. I’m gonna toss 5-9 then lead the 3

Thursday 1:21 PM

Thursday 2:04 PM

I'll look at 2-3-4-5 (9-9), 2-3-4-9 (5-9) and 3-4-5-9S (2-9D):

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

2-3-4-9S: 5pts - 6¼pts (Schell: 6.15) = -1¼pts

3-4-5-9S: 3pts - 4¾pts (Schell: 4.70) = -1¾pts

Potential:

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.

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.

3-4-5-9: Improves with AAAA, 222, 333, 444, 555, 6666, 7777, 8888, 99 + 16xXs = 46 cuts = 46/46 = 100.0% up to 6/8/12pts with 222, 333, 444, 555, 6666 = 16 cuts.

Position:

We only need 4pts to reach 2nd street positional hole while opponent is already there as Dealer. So they have positional advantage. However I'll play Defense to try to keep them short of 60pts and hopefully finish up well past 44pts.

Pegging:

2-3-4-5 usually pegs well but playing Defense both 2-3-4-9S and 3-4-5-9S have the 9 as an out card so I think will peg better.

Summary:

2-3-4-9S has the best starting value by ½pt over 3-4-5-9S and 1pt over 2-3-4-5. Both 2-3-4-5 and 3-4-5-9S have guaranteed improvement but 2-3-4-9 is not far behind. However 2-3-4-5 has 40 cuts for 7-12pts. So I feel it will make up the 1pt and more therefore I'll throw the pair of 9s.

Thursday 2:04 PM

At 40-44* playing an offense strategy for the pegging the dynamic expected averages and Win/Loss %s are:

________________Our
Offense____Hand_Pegs_Crib____Total___W6 %____W7 %
2-3-4-5_____8.65+2.11+(-6.15)=4.61____40.7____37.7
3-4-5-9S____6.17+2.30+(-4.27)=4.20____31.9____36.7
2-3-4-9S____8.09+2.17+(-6.32)=3.94____38.1____36.2

Offense_______L6 %____L7 %
2-3-4-5________52.5____45.1
3-4-5-9S_______45.9____46.1
2-3-4-9S_______52.2____47.3

2-3-4-5 is best for expected averages by 0.41pt. over 3-4-5-9S and is appreciably best for Win %s. Although 3-4-5-9S is very much lowest for Loss %s because of the safer 2-9D discard I'll still select the pair of 9s to discard.

After the J cut I'll lead the 3 and play Offense:

Lead____________Our Pegging Points
3______________________2.64
2______________________2.37
4______________________2.34
5______________________1.94