Tuesday 3:03 AM

It's a New Day, and a New Game, and we the First Dealer. 🌞

We dealt ourselves a splendid Hand of Eight 🎱 Points in the form of Keep (3 6 6 9), and we have an opportunity for a stellar Crib after Toss (5 T).

After the Deuce Cut, we STILL have those Eight Points in our Hand, with prospects ⛏ for an average Crib.

   

Tuesday 3:38 AM

When in doubt 5-10.

   

Tuesday 3:50 AM

Another easy one for you today. 😊

   

Tuesday 3:56 AM

Seems straightforward to me.

   

Tuesday 4:15 AM

Duck Soup

   

Tuesday 4:58 AM

Keeping max combined points hand + crib with the 5-10 top 10 discard to our crib.

   

Tuesday 5:09 AM

Always like a 5 in my crib.

   

Tuesday 5:11 AM

Crib loaded 5-10, cut meh, in the early herd.

   

Tuesday 5:16 AM

There's just enough strength in this 'pregnant threes hand' to keep it this way with the 2 star toss to our Crib. Too bad we can't keep the Magic Eleven. But it's usually wrong to speculate on the double run cut with the 4, if it means sacrificing 2 points to begin with, and putting an also ran toss in your Crib (3-10). That's Pone's job. Defense to the lead. Unless Pone leads one of the black 6's.

   

Tuesday 5:22 AM

Unlikely to receive any help from the cut, but a pretty solid option none the less.

   

Tuesday 5:23 AM

With all due respect to scottcrib, I don’t see the twist here. 56 eleven is always good, cutting a 4 with ?566 is always good, but even so, seems like a “5T or quit playing cribbage” situation.

(Since some people are deficient in irony, I’ll point out that this comment is a joke, indeed an homage to a great dch troll of yore, “falseclaimofgame”. If I quit playing cribbage on making a bad toss, I would have quit playing thousands of times over by now).

Starting with eight in hand, and with a good crib throw, I would lean to defense, but an unpromising cut would push me more to the middle. I’d certainly pair a six lead regardless, while on fourth street even this would maybe be too risky (depending on the state of the score and the state of my gut).

Checking Liam, this keep is better than the next best (35) by about 1.2 points in hand+crib, so there’s really no question today.

Cut isn’t that promising – we may well have a merely average crib. Still, while there is a theoretical desire to nab points, I don’t think this would affect the play much. Obviously would not pair a three, nor would I play the six to entice a triple. Would play the nine and then pair pone’s second three if he has one. One of the more likely (really, unlikely) ways to pick up points would be a two-on-none. Generally, would favoring conserving the 69 over the 66, both for flexibility, and because two-on-nones are a bit more likely with higher ranks than lower ranks.

Hung out with “intellectualinmate” and his gf last night, played chess and whatnot. I hope he starts posting again, since the environment here is kinda claustrophobic with so few posters, but he’s much more interested in chess. We did make beery plans to start a cribbage club in this cribbage desert, but finding a venue would be difficult.

The question of why cribbage is not so popular in the south is an interesting one. I suspect the true cause is wind: the northern parts of the hemisphere are more subject to hot and dry exhalations produced by the thawing of the polar climes, which produce the famous “etesians” – these are cold only per accidens, as Aristotle said the breath on the hand is warm but at any distance becomes cooler. And this is compounded over again by the great lakes, which due to their extensiveness cannot contain their exhalations. These winds cannot but have an effect on the soul, imbuing the inhabitants of these regions with a certain alacrity and quickness, more apportioned to a chancy and fast-paced game like cribbage. In the southern zones, the power of the sun tends to dry the earth too quickly for strong winds to form, while the resulting humidity has a stultifying effect. Then eat biscuits and gravy for breakfast – inevitably, few have a head for cribbage in these parts. The dominant card games are Rummy and Spades, which are quite different beasts.

I haven’t been submitting puzzles because I’ve pretty well established that the chance of them being allowed through are about 0. This is too bad, since not all of the puzzles we’ve seen lately have been all that interesting. (Again, no offense to the submitters, all of whom frequently post great puzzles).

   

Tuesday 5:45 AM

In Rob We Trust…”Don’t over think it”

   

Tuesday 5:57 AM

4-7 cuts vs 3-6-9 cuts. Tie breaker 5-10 in the crib. dec

   

Tuesday 6:45 AM

10-5 for myself, 10-3 if I lost the cut for first dealer and need to send something to their crib.

I'll play defense, though would pair a 6 lead. If they play a 3 to make 15, I'm going back and forth whether I'd pair that 3 or play the 9.

   

Tuesday 8:00 AM

Count me in!

   

Tuesday 8:39 AM

Here's the output from CribEDGE for today's hand:

Keep: Three of Clubs, Six of Diamonds, Six of Hearts, Nine of Hearts
Toss: Five of Clubs, Ten of Hearts
Worth: 8 / Bonus: 12

   

Tuesday 12:30 PM

I'll look at 3-6-6-9 (5-10), 6-6-9-10 (3-5), 5-6-6-9 (3-10) and 3-5-6-6 (9-10):

3-6-6-9: 8pts + 6½pts (Schell: 6.66) = 14½pts

6-6-9-10: 6pts + 6pts (Schell: 5.97) = 12pts

5-6-6-9: 6pts + 3½pts (Schell: 3.57) = 9½pts

3-5-6-6: 4pts + 4¼pts (Schell: 4.29) = 8¼pts

Potential:

3-6-6-9: Improves with 333, 66, 999 = 8 cuts = 8/46 = 17.4% up to 14/18pts with all cuts.

6-6-9-10: Improves with 333, 66, 8888, 999, 101010, JJJJ = 19 cuts = 19/46 = 41.6% up to 9/12pts with 66, 8888, 999, JJJJ = 13 cuts.

5-6-6-9: Improves with AAAA, 333, 4444, 555, 66, 7777, 999 + 15xXs = 38 cuts = 38/46 = 82.6% up to 12/16pts with 4444, 66, 7777, 999 = 13 cuts.

3-5-6-6: Improves with AAAA, 333, 4444, 555, 66, 7777, 999 + 15xXs = 38 cuts = 38/46 = 82.6% up to 8/12/16 with AAAA, 333, 4444, 66, 7777, 999 = 20 cuts.

Position:

As First Dealer positional hole is at 8pts so I'll play Defense but try to score the average 16pts or more.

Pegging:

I think with a low card, a 5 and a middle-card pair plus a magic eleven 3-5-6-6 should peg best.

Summary:

Both 5-6-6-9 and 3-5-6-6 have many more cuts for improvement than the other two hands. 5-6-6-9 has 13 cuts for 12/16pts and 3-5-6-6 has 20 cuts for 8-16pts compared to 8 cuts for 14/18pts with 3-6-6-9 and 13 cuts for 9/12pts with 6-6-9-10. However the starting value for 3-6-6-9 is 5/6¼pts more than 5-6-6-9 and 3-5-6-6 and 2½pts more than 6-6-9-10 and I don't think any of the hands hand will catch this up. So I'll throw the 5-10.

   

Tuesday 12:31 PM

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

_______________Pone's
Defense___Hand_Pegs____Crib_Total____W9 %____W10 %
3-6-6-9____9.22+(-2.04)+6.52=13.70____45.9____57.7
6-6-9-10___7.57+(-2.11)+6.09=11.55____39.5____52.6
5-6-6-9____9.13+(-2.02)+3.50=10.61____38.3____50.6
3-5-6-6____7.74+(-2.07)+3.99= 9.66____36.8____49.4

Defense_______L9 %____L10 %
3-6-6-9________25.9____18.5
6-6-9-10_______25.9____22.3
5-6-6-9________26.8____24.0
3-5-6-6________26.3____24.7

3-6-6-9 is best for expected averages by 2.15pts. over 6-6-9-10 and is considerably best for Win %s and Loss %s so I'll select the 5-10 to discard.

After the 2 cut I'll play Defense to the lead.