Yesterday's results

*** This hand was suggested by scottcrib
117*-110  ?
22%
22%
22%
22%
14%
14%
9%
9%
8%
8%
7%
7%
4%
4%
3%
3%
2%
2%
1%
1%
1%
1%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Total votes: 306
scottcribCribbagePro hand.
Rosemarie44

Joined: March 2016 (2241 votes)

Wednesday 3:09 AM
End games are my challenges. I have a four card "eleven".
Gougie00

Joined: March 2008 (6172 votes)

Wednesday 3:14 AM
keeping the peggers.
SallyAnn3 says: CONGRATS on earning your LIFE eMASTER level, Greg!!
Gougie00 says: Thank you. I keep getting 11s, and miss qualifying alot as well.
tevdodd

Joined: May 2021 (276 votes)

Wednesday 3:24 AM
Went aggressively this morning, no issues if someone wants to hold the 2 pairs here and play it defensively instead.

*SPOILER*
Cribbage Pro Daily Scrimmage
Score: 121 to 106
SP: 1725

Discards:
1. 9-Q
2. 5-Q
3. A-Q 17-19*
4. A-6
5. A-T
6. 2-7
7. 3-7 65-69*
8. 5-T
9. 4-8
10. J-J 118*-106

Wordle 1,474 4/6*

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mrob2199

Joined: February 2009 (1698 votes)

Wednesday 3:26 AM
I want a magic 11 AND a potential 5 trap to maximize my chances of pegging the 4 I need-on any picture lead play a 3 - that will prevent the pone from dumping his 5- if he has a hand such as x456 we could also defense that
dec

Joined: April 2008 (6856 votes)

Wednesday 3:42 AM
I like this defense and potential offense on the pegging many eight tight hands to defense against. dec
james500

Joined: June 2013 (4346 votes)

Wednesday 4:13 AM
*Spoiler*

Cribbage Pro Scrimmage
2nd Jul 2025
πŸ†Score: 121 to 99
πŸŒ‹SP: 1830
πŸ“…Streak: 16
https://www.cribbagepro.net/scrimmage/536/3333658/1

1. 0-0*, 7-Q
2. *7-12, 5-Q
3. 21-22*, 2s-6h, (Q-A?)
4. *27-38, A-6
5. 42-47*, A-10
6. *54-63, 2-7
7. 70-67*, A-9
8. *77-74, 5-10
9. 106,84*, 4d-8
10. *120-99, 5-Jd.
james500 says: Score going in to deal 10 was *120-105.
fentesk says: We had the same discards, but I got into some pegging battles you must have managed to avoid. The score for me in deal 9 was 119-95*, I didn't track my earlier scores to compare, but I think I lost the pegging early but made up enough to shift the score to end a hand early (121-95 with the game ending on the third pegging card of deal 9). Total pegging for comparison was 27-28 for a -1 differential. One hand alone has 11-8 pegging, I also lost the first hand 0-5, so I messed up something there.
ryman554

Joined: January 2025 (159 votes)

Wednesday 4:35 AM
I don't want the pone pegging. So 8833 to prevent any pairs and runs from close cards.

A lead of a 7 will be interesting.
domandcarol

Joined: August 2023 (156 votes)

Wednesday 4:38 AM
Have enough points in hand, Magic 11s and hopefully enough defense
JQT

Joined: October 2008 (4517 votes)

Wednesday 5:05 AM
Does the Dealer need to peg out in order to prevail? Is the Pope really from Illinois? And do the C Major and A minor scales actually share the same notes? It's a mysterious world out there, folks. β›ͺ

Let's delve into yet another splendid CribbagePro Endgame Battle, in an endgame captured by the renowned Cribbage Puzzle Composer, scottcrib. At a score of (117*-110), we are the Dealer at Hole 117, and our Opponent is Pone at Hole 110. Pone's Average NET Total is known to be about Ten Points "and change," or about 10.2 Points(**), which is tallied via Pegging plus First Hand Show, however: as the Current Dealer, we typically enjoy a slight Pegging Advantage over Pone, and before Pone tallies the Hand, as the Dealer, we should tend to peg an Average of about 3.5 Holes(**). (Note: It's been decades since I attended college, but 3.5 is LESS THAN 4!) πŸ€”

(**) Cribbage Scoring Statistics, from GameColony Dot Com

This means that after both the Pegging Phase and First Hand Show, those prospective averages should result in a Relative Score (drum roll please) of precisely (120.5*-120.2)! Whew! Or should that be: Phew!? We're Half-a-Point shy of going out as the Dealer, and our Opponent will be sitting (perhaps uncomfortably) around Eight-Tenths of a Point from the Finish Line! Have we just witnessed the "Decimalization" of Cribbage? It is said that "Draws" are ruining Chess as well as Football (Soccer); are these out to conquer Cribbage as well? ⚽

Yes, Pope Leo, formerly known as Robert Francis Prevost, was born in Chicago on September 14, 1955. That was one week before President Eisenhower suffered a coronary thrombosis while on vacation in Denver, Colorado, and a gentleman by the name of Richard Nixon temporarily served as 'Acting President' while Eisenhower recovered. And indeed, C Major and A minor are considered to be "relative" keys, but their starting points (tonal centers) differ. You learn all of these interesting and lovely things when you follow the Daily Cribbage Hand! It's kind of interesting and yet annoying. 🎼

Back to our nearly "Drawn" Cribbage Game. We need to understand accurately what it means when we say that Pone's Average Tally is a NET Total of around Ten Holes, since Pone currently sits at Hole 110, or Eleven Holes away from VICTORY. By stating that something is "Average," mathematically this means that 50% of the time, Pone will score Ten Points or less by completion of the current deal, and the other 50% of the time, Pone will navigate Ten Points or more by completion of the deal. 🎲

This means that if we "Just Play Defense" and retain the MOST DEFENSIVE Pegging Hand, and we do it well (let's even brag and say we do it "perfectly"!), we'll probably LOSE some of the time (if Pone were at Hole 111, it would be much worse for us), but more often than not, Pone will come up short. That seems like we might be rewarded for simply watching our Opponent LOSE! Why is this the case? It's about what we control, and what we don't control: we can have some control over the pegging; however, we CANNOT CONTROL Pone's Hand! At least HALF (or greater) of the time, we're going to deal our Opponent a Hand that will simply not defeat us even if Pone gets to tally First Hand Show. 🍰

What does all this mean? It means we could still look for an opportunity to peg out, but our primary task should probably be to DEFEND. After all: Our Pegging Average is 3.5 Points, and we need Four Points. As the Current Dealer, it's unlikely that we can peg Four Points or more, but we do have at least three additional factors (try to guess what these are) that give us a bit of a "tailwind" in this situation: πŸͺ

(1) Since we dealt ourselves NO Jacks, we have a nearly 9% chance of a Jack Cut and obtaining "Two for His High Heels," after which we would enjoy an OVERWHELMING ADVANTAGE, and yet this factor will help us regardless of which cards we hold; 🎑

(2) We can focus ALL (or at least MOST) of our energy on the task of the Pegging Itself, because both our Hand Score and Crib Score are next to meaningless when we are the Dealer at Hole 117, as we shall ALWAYS peg the Proverbial One Hole, so we don't need to worry about "covering" the distance;
πŸ˜‡

(3) This last item is often overlooked, but (as we should ALWAYS do in Cribbage) let's put ourselves in our Opponent's Shoes (Pegs) for a moment, and think: At Hole 110, Pone is NOT going to be able to retain the very best Defensive Hand in order to inhibit our pegging. It would be nice for Pone if that were possible, but at Hole 110, Pone is almost always going to be FORCED to retain the cards that can actually tally enough points to "cover" most or all of those Eleven Holes that stand between Pone's Front Peg and the Game Hole! 😭

All of those previous things that conspire to help us as the Dealer will likely help us regardless of the cards we are holding, and therefore this should allow us to think about approaching such an endgame scenario with our focus on about 80% Defense and 20% Offense (we shouldn't think 100% Defense, because we still enjoy TWO ways to WIN such a game). With no Jacks being dealt to us, we have 4/46 equals 0.087 or about a 9% chance of a Jack Cut and "Two for πŸ‘ πŸ‘  Her Heels," which would lighten our burden by HALF, and allow us to WIN with any PAIR, Fifteen, Thirty-One, or Run. Wouldn't that be nice?! But we are NOT dependent upon getting a Jack Cut in order to WIN. πŸ€ΉπŸΌβ€β™€οΈ

We want a special kind of Hand today, a Hand that can both adequately DEFEND if need be, and yet at the same time, allow us some chance for pegging opportunistically. Those seem like contradictory ideas, because, well: they are! But on the margin, we shall lean toward DEFENSE, because the burden is really on our Opponent today! If the score were different by perhaps just One Hole (for EITHER PLAYER!) today, we might approach this very differently. β›³

In a DEFENSIVE capacity, I like holding the two PAIRS, since any card rank we have in abundance is far less likely to have been dealt to our Opponent. With (3 3 8 8), we also have two Magic Eleven Duos of 3-8, which will safely score against a Pone with many X Cards. 🀑

It's a close call here, as (A 3 3 4) would be a very capable Offensive Pegging Hand, and if either Pone or us as the Dealer were just maybe One Hole CLOSER today, I think that would justify an Offensive Posture. However, with Pone starting out at Hole 110, beyond the Pone Average Scoring threshold, and with us simultaneously sitting just beyond our Dealer Pegging Average, I'm going to place my bets on DEFENSE. 🚧

That doesn't mean we shouldn't score if the opportunity presents itself and we can do so SAFELY, for if we can score upon Pone's Lead Card, then we should. And if a Jack Cut occurs, we are all in-it-to-WIN-it Offensively. But if none of those things occur (and the odds say that they will usually NOT occur), then our goal as the Dealer here will be to MAKE OUR OPPONENT EARN IT! πŸ₯Ž

Let's Toss (A 4) today, and while we're to keep our eyes open to any and all opportunities, our default posture will be to DEFEND and watch Pone "come up short" of the Finish Line. After the Trey Cut, little has changed in our perspective, and we are ready to put up some firm resistance. Yes, a 7 or 8 Card Lead would be very interesting! 🎱

The A minor scale uses the same notes as the C Major scale (C-D-E-F-G-A-B), but the tonal "center" is A instead of C. While the key of C Major is generally perceived as bright and happy, the key of A minor has a more somber or melancholic feel. 🎹 Therefore, as they were voting in the senate this week on H.R.1., the "Big Beautiful Bill," it reminded me of this short tune from nearly two centuries ago:

Chopin Prelude Op. 28, No. 2 in A minor
Costantino Carrara - "The Flaming Piano" πŸŒ‹
https://youtu.be/T_2FM2qGZZY
(Volume UP - Loop Enable)

Wordle 1,474 3/6 (As a Result, I'm Back in the Saddle Again!) 🐎

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Eolus619 says: Thanks JQT for your time and thoughts today..Quite the effort πŸ‘ As my Irish NYC born grandmother would say β€œ You are cooking with gas on all four burners β€œ πŸ’₯❗️
tevdodd says: JQT, if you can check the Aug 1 puzzle, I think I may have put the flush on the wrong cards. If it looks too obvious as is, feel free to change the flush and re-submit it.
JQT says: Good Afternoon, tevdodd! The puzzle submitted for 8/1/25 (108-115*) (3d 5s 7s 9h 9s Qs) 3c is indeed in need of some fixin', because after Toss (3d 9h), while we stand to LOSE about 73% of the time, AFTER ANY OTHER DISCARD CHOICE we are slated to LOSE well over 90% of the time, thus the puzzle as posted has just one clear-cut logical solution as it stands, which is to retain the FLUSH of (5s 7s 9s Qs), the answer as you suspected. VERDICT: Any of these four cards that include the 5 Card with matching suits (a FLUSH) at the given Relative Score creates a huge imbalance in this arrangement as far as I can determine, with lop-sided expectations that erase the educational value of the puzzle. Without a FLUSH, four hands would begin with a Maximum Expectation of Ten Points with Cut Cards as indicated as follows: After Toss (3 5), Toss (5 Q), or Toss (3 Q), Four Cuts (8888) would yield Ten Points in ALL cases, and after Toss (9 9), Three Cuts (555) would also yield Ten Points, and then also in all cases, it will then require us to peg Three Holes in order to WIN. Three Cuts is 25% less hopeful than Four Cuts, so without a FLUSH present in the original arrangement, it seems like the best solution would be among those three ideas that yield Ten Points after Four Cuts, which is 4/46 equals 0.087 or likely to occur almost 9% of the time. Thus, our odds of prevailing in this puzzle are below 10%. The optimal solution would therefore be for us to determine which of the following three ideas is best at allowing us to peg Three Holes as Pone: (7 9 9 Q), (3 7 9 9), or (5 7 9 9). Rex Cribbage still likes (3 5 7 Q) as well, which I don't quite understand, as it only has those Three Cut Cards to reach Ten Points, so it ultimately tends to prefer these in the order I've listed, with (3 5 7 Q) thrown in there for good measure. If a FLUSH option is introduced to this arrangement, if it includes the 5 Card as part of the FLUSH (as the posted puzzle does), it creates a huge imbalance with only the FLUSH as the overwhelming solution. However, I also examined several other FLUSH ideas that do not include the 5 Card, and these all come out as duds (too weak), such that the FLUSH option becomes a red herring. There is a puzzle in there somewhere, but after several hours spent looking at this from a number of angles using Rex Cribbage for help, I cannot see a way that a FLUSH option will do anything but detract from this puzzle. Let me know if you want the puzzle removed, now that I've 'SPOILERED' it to oblivion (LOL), and perhaps you can simply post another idea, or try to fix this one and re-post it. 😎
tevdodd says: If you read my write-up, you know that I saw the original hand as the red herring you reference, which is why I suspected I submitted it incorrectly. I feel good about my live discard. Go ahead and delete it, and thanks for the over-analysis. I'm sure I'll run into something more interesting tonight and bring another puzzle to overload the system again. :)
tevdodd says: I do find it interesting that we're more likely to peg 3 holding the Q rather than the 3. What's the lead? 7?
JQT says: The Lead Card is a bit of a chameleon 🦎 in such an endgame, because unless we get our Cut Card, we'll need to peg anywhere from Seven or Eight Holes on up to (gasp!) Eleven Holes! There is simply no way to characterize such a long shot. But if we do get our Cut Card, from what I can tell, we should: Lead the 3 from (3 5 7 Q), and Lead a 9 Card from our PAIR in (7 9 9 Q), (3 7 9 9), and (5 7 9 9).
Assman

Joined: May 2024 (440 votes)

Wednesday 5:25 AM
I’m keeping the peggers.
SallyAnn3

Joined: March 2020 (1255 votes)

Wednesday 5:39 AM
I'm with Kevin today--no island.
TheGrumpyUncle

Joined: June 2025 (30 votes)

Wednesday 6:41 AM
I would feel really bad if I kept 2 points,and only pegged the 1
JJx7fan

Joined: December 2023 (137 votes)

Wednesday 6:47 AM
This has it all, the points I need, magic 11, potential 5 trap and most likely a safe card with 3- 3s gone.
Eolus619

Joined: June 2020 (1761 votes)

Wednesday 7:09 AM
This is one of those puzzles where the varied keeps from accomplished players may actually end up being somewhat confusing to the less experienced player. Cribbage is a game of choice ..and so is this puzzle. For me, I am letting dec, Rob and Jen ( and others ) speak on my behalf. Not holding enough to go out and thus depending on pegging and a favorable cut did not make sense to me. I do see the reasoning for 3388.
tevdodd says: While it is technically possible, it's highly unlikely to not have enough to go out. That said, there is 1 seeing-eye cut that could make it happen. Even if it does, we're dealing from 120, that's a risk I'll take.
tevdodd says: Sorry, pone from 120, so yes, it is slightly more precarious than I let on. I still like my play, however.
Eolus619 says: Hello tevdodd ..it’s a game of choices and i respect your choice..and ..the trey cut rather than the nine puts you out if you get to count πŸ‘
Sgt Pegger

Joined: July 2017 (686 votes)

Wednesday 9:00 AM
I prefer this way because of all the options to peg out.
farleysma

Joined: March 2022 (360 votes)

Wednesday 9:16 AM
If pone holds pictures and 5s this is basically a golden hand to peg four, with the magic eleven and saving the 34 in an effort to trap a 5. With pone needing 11 they’re likely to hold cards that will correspond nicely with the 3348 and allow us to peg
HalscribCLX

Joined: February 2008 (5704 votes)

Wednesday 11:47 AM
At 117*-110 playing a Defense strategy for the pegging the Average Pone Pegging Points and Chances of Our Pegging Out are:

Defense_____Pone Peg Pts._____Dlr Peg Out %
A-3-4-8_______(-1.50)_____________45.0
A-3-8-8_______(-1.70)_____________34.2
A-3-3-8_______(-1.85)_____________38.9
3-3-8-8_______(-1.89)_____________23.2
A-4-8-8_______(-1.96)_____________29.5
3-4-8-8_______(-2.00)_____________38.6
3-3-4-8_______(-2.04)_____________42.1
A-3-3-4_______(-2.04)_____________47.2

Although A-3-3-4 has the best chance of Our Pegging Out it also has one of the highest average Pone Pegging Points at 2.04pts. A-3-4-8 is only 2.2% lower in chances of Our Pegging Out while the average Pone Pegging Points is 1.50pts. So, I'll select a suited 3-8 to discard.

After the 3 cut I'll play Defense to the lead.
Gougie00 says: Seems this is a case of playing defense into a close loss. I will take my chances on pegging out.
scottcrib

Joined: August 2019 (2071 votes)

Wednesday 11:52 AM
Thank you for your comments today. I thought it was an interesting choice regarding off/def and what to keep depending upon your decision.
JQT says: With very little development going on in Cribbage Algorithms, I see similarities between the state of Cribbage Programming in 2025 and the equivalent Chess Programming development that was occurring about two decades ago. One of the more interesting things to follow during that development in the world of Chess was certain tricky puzzles and endgames that gave the algorithms at the time the most trouble. They began to collect these into a "suite" (refer to NOLOT'S Chess Suite for details) of known, challenging problems, and sure enough, over the years, newer programs 'knocked off' and began to tackle and solve many of the problems. Some would run for hours, days, or with INFINITE time, and sometimes no solution could be decided upon, or it became clear that it was not converging upon a valid solution. But as the years rolled by, newer programs or old programs with improved algorithms would sometimes solve one of the puzzles from the suite in just seconds! The progress in Cribbage took giant leaps with Halscrib and Rex and Crib Prof (CLX variant) between 2005 and 2012, but since few other programs have appeared, and virtually no competition is taking place (Chess has had an annual Program-vs-Program competition for decades, with dozens of programs!), progress has been slow-to-nonexistent. And with the loss of Halscrib source code, it might be decades until the pace of development gets back to what it was over two decades ago. This puzzle and many like it will be great test problems to see how future algorithms can handle such a complex endgame, and I only wish we had that source code which would have made it much easier for new programmers to get up-and-running and perhaps develop some improved ideas. My fear is that it will take decades just to get to where we already were in 2012, and as far as I am aware, NOBODY is currently working on this. 🍸 πŸ₯¨
hecklebush

Joined: February 2022 (305 votes)

Wednesday 12:59 PM
Well, I'm definitely in the minority today holding
A, 3, 4, 8. My reasoning is that 4 different cards afford the greatest flexibility in play. As a bonus, the 3 and 8 are "safe" cards whether they're in my hand or crib. I played this out on CRIBPRO and pegged out, first with a "15" on pone's lead of a 7 [he did score a run of 3 with a 6] and a "31" at the end. Good puzzle.
JQT says: Very good explanation! The 'hybrid' idea of combining the 3-8 Magic Eleven, along with having the VARIETY of four unique card ranks, gives this idea a LOT of flexibility. I calculated that 80% Defense and 20% Offense was apropos, but it may be closer to 50-50 after all! 🌟 πŸ₯Š 🩹
Synapsid

Joined: June 2025 (9 votes)

Thursday 12:41 AM
I threw AceD and 8S and did not particularly care which of those two I did given pone counting first and not having crib (therefore no need to worry about crib flush). The 3348 guarantees win even if no pegging PROVIDED pone doesn't peg and count to win before me, but 3348 offers some pegging versatility still and keeps a magic 11 to respond to a 10 card lead if that is what pone wishes to do. That's my logic on this one and now I'll read everyone else's comments and see what I missed. Does 3-4 trapping a 5 work here?
scottcrib

Joined: August 2019 (2071 votes)

Thursday 4:32 AM
Welcome!