Saturday 3:12 AM

A-3, 6-9, J-J? All are reasonably close and I would normally pitch A-3, but Pone is in position and I am very short. So, I better play some defense here.

Saturday 3:46 AM

Toss (A 3) may appear to be the weakest of the three possible Dealer Discards under consideration, but it actually gives us the best "balance" and it increases our chances for further growth in our Crib, because while Toss (A 3) begins with Zero Points, it gets help from so many other combinations of cards. ☕ 🍩 🍎

Saturday 4:19 AM

More of a defensive ploy here. A combination of points from the hand and the crib that could add up. dec

Saturday 4:32 AM

A-3 definitely is the better toss to our crib. Start with 4 points with a hand that has potential for 8 or 10 points.

Saturday 5:04 AM

Nothing that I like on this menu. I'll toss 6-9 and hope for the best.

Saturday 6:02 AM

Not a bounty of great choices, but going with A3 toss, keeping points in hand with possibilities for more.

Saturday 6:14 AM

Saturday 6:28 AM

Keep the 69 with the Jacks for longshot double run, and A3 more versatile as pointed out by JQT. If the facecard pair was Queens or Kings, goodbye 69.

Saturday 6:49 AM

I like the options this hand offers. I checked and Liam says the A-3 is the recommended toss. Nonetheless, I like to toss middle cards into the crib. 😎

Saturday 6:56 AM

More cut help possible for both this way.

Saturday 8:40 AM

A nugget of trivia which Bruce will correct me on if I have wrong.

If you list the 91 discards by the frequency that they are made by the dealer, (which I assume starts 2-3, 7-8, X-5...), and then do the same for the non-dealer, (which I assume starts K-10, K/Q-9, K/Q-6....), A-3 is the first discard common to both lists. If one list were simply the exact inverse of the other, discard number 46 would have the title of, "highest common to both", but I believe that A-3 is in the top 20 of both lists.

So what does this tell us about how we are to consider the strength of A-3? If it's high on the dealer list because it's a good discard, it shouldn't also be a high frequency discard made by the non-dealer, and vice versa, if it's a good defensive discard, why is the dealer making it so often? I can only assume that, as with today's puzzle, it's because A-3 with no 2 or 4 present in the hand, doesn't fit with the other four cards all that well, and so gets discarded as, "chaff", to the, "wheat", of the remaining hand.

TLDR: A-3 for me.

Saturday 8:45 AM

All Poker players know that the hardest thing to do is "hitting to an inside straight". With this in mind, it comes down to what are the best cards to give your crib a chance at stardom?