August 20, 2019

*** This hand was suggested by Andy (muesli64)
117-119*  ?
67%
7%
5%
4%
2%
2%
2%
1%
1%
0%
0%
0%
Total votes: 202
dec
6358 votes

Joined: April 2008
 
 
 
Tuesday 3:34 AM
First to me more important to keep peggers to go out that way, first count is probably not in the cards. So the lead between three and the four. Three possible responses on each so I lead the three. Get a thirty-one, Get a go and last card or be the first to trap a run card. Best least odds of the three is get the run if they keep peggers also. dec
dec says: and the possible pair response. dec
Guest says: Pear
zeke76 says: Pare
Guest says: Response is shake the hand and say nice game.
Rosemarie44
2052 votes

Joined: March 2016
 
 
 
Tuesday 3:49 AM
Today's hand is a tall order - keeping dealer short of 2 points (really only 1). Keeping all the peggers. Not sure on the lead card.
james500
3923 votes

Joined: June 2013
 
 
 
Tuesday 4:13 AM
With a Jack already in my hand, the chances of an immediate game-losing cut are reduced to 3/46. With that "hurdle" cleared we can begin.

The 25% chance of a point for the "right" Jack could be crucial, so I'll keep it rather than the 7.

I'll lead the 4. If paired the game is over, but if Dealer replies with an A,2,3,5,6,8 or J, I can score two of the four points I need, and will do so. On a 7 response I'll play the 3, raising the score to 14 as there are only three Aces in circulation. On a 9,10,Q or K reply, I'll also play the 3, putting the score in the "safer" 16-20 zone where I can only be paired but not also "thirty-oned".

Tough puzzle Andy.
mrob2199
1435 votes

Joined: February 2009
 
 
 
Tuesday 4:52 AM
Tough time to be dealt a blank-our best shot is to keep 3-4-6-7-even if the cut doesn’t get us anything we still have a shot at pegging 4 before dealer gets 2-lead the 3 and match anything -there is a good chance dealer will try to coax you into a run-as giving up 3 will not hurt if he has the 4th card in the run-so be very wary if something looks too good to be true
zeke76
1396 votes

Joined: August 2018
 
 
 
Tuesday 4:53 AM
Pray for pegging.
Gougie00
5730 votes

Joined: March 2008
 
 
 
Tuesday 5:07 AM
Keep the smaller cards and pray for a miracle.
RubyTuesday
913 votes

Joined: January 2019
 
 
 
Tuesday 5:45 AM
We’re going to finish during play so I tried to keep the best hand for pegging. An interesting hand!
mfetchCT425
1399 votes

Joined: February 2009
 
 
 
Tuesday 6:02 AM
Keep the lower cards for pegging. Also believe this hold gives us more chances for a hand of at least 4 points. Would lead the 3 and pair dealers next card if opportunity arises.
mfetchCT425 says: And would take 15-2 as well if dealer responds with and 8.
cwed
1355 votes

Joined: October 2014
 
 
 
Tuesday 6:59 AM
Keep all the low cards and dump the X cards in the crib. So which is tougher--to peg four points or to hold the dealer to one point?
JRCeagle78
1054 votes

Joined: June 2016
 
 
 
Tuesday 7:09 AM
The face cards have little value with this hand. Keeping the 4 lower value cards is better for pegging, and increasing the value of the hand if you have the chance for first count. Plan for pegging rule this hand.

The dealer will probably keep a similar spread of cards. Perhaps you can catch him by surprise by leading the 6. The 9 is one of the more discarded ranks at this point of the game.
JCM
910 votes

Joined: April 2019
 
 
 
Tuesday 7:59 AM
Keep 4 low cards: 3-4-6-7(J-Q). Especially note that we have a 3-card 16 in 3-6-7. So, maybe - lead the 6. Hard for Opp. to start a run on that lead. He plays, hopefully, an X(count 16). Next play the 7(count 23) If all goes to the idea he's holding Xs and 5s, he plays his 5 and we play 3 for 31-2. Opp gets his guaranteed 1pt playing 2 cards on our 4. Hopefully he doesn't make a pair or 15.
We then have a 15-2 in first count(A-3-4-7) to win.
A lot of "ifs" there - but it's the best I can think of in a difficult situation.
JCM says: Admittedly, it's not so likely Opp. is holding Xs and 5s in an endgame like this, but you never know. If he's holding low cards, leading the 3 is more dangerous than it appears.
JCM says: Admittedly, it's not so likely Opp. is holding Xs and 5s in an endgame like this, but you never know. If he's holding low cards, leading the 3 is more dangerous than it appears.
Ras2829 says: Hi JCM: You make a good point on the danger of leading the trey. Even so, In end-game situations, I just tend to count the cards that will beat me on the lead. With the trey, there are three. Leading the 6, there are 7. Understand the dealer desire to hold small cards needing pegs to win. Appreciate your insight and willingness to share.
Ras2829 says: Hi JCM: You make a good point on the danger of leading the trey. Even so, In end-game situations, I just tend to count the cards that will beat me on the lead. With the trey, there are three. Leading the 6, there are 7. Understand the dealer desire to hold small cards needing pegs to win. Appreciate your insight and willingness to share.
Ras2829
5154 votes

Joined: November 2008
 
 
 
Tuesday 8:04 AM
Yup - keep the peggers. Lead the trey as it keeps 4-6-7 intact. If not leading the trey, would choose the 6 so it would keep the lower end of the hand intact. It is very difficult to limit dealer to one peg. Often in hands where dealer picks up a single peg, dealer duplicates in the second pegging sequence. So often two 1-point "goes" are scored. Scant empirical evidence suggest that dealer might be limited to 1 peg at a 1/10 rate. So don't think n/d will get to count. Besides that obstacle n/d needs two pegs or first count doesn't matter anyway. Very slim chances for a win - even so it is important to "shore up" and play with confidence.
Guest says: If dealer stops at 1, without pegging may not get out anyway.
JQT says: Dwelling on the numerous ways in which we may lose can interfere with those ideas that, however rare and remote, may enable us to succeed and WIN. The idea posited by our Guest (above) is certainly true, but we should and *must* not end our analysis here; rather, this is where the real analysis BEGINS.
JQT
4143 votes

Joined: October 2008
 
 
 
Tuesday 8:24 AM
Here we have ALL THREE of what I long ago have dubbed the (3 4), (6 7), and (J Q) Discarding Cousins! Although each of these begins with zero 'static' points, they can each occasionally be somewhat more risky than several discards that do begin with two 'static' points, discards such as Toss (K K), Toss (Q Q), Toss (T T), and even Toss (A A)! And yet with the Dealer sitting at Hole 119, this becomes a moot point, literally.

We're always happy to see a Jack in our hand under such dire circumstances, as each Jack accounted for reduces the possibility of an actual Jack Cut by 1 DIV 46 equals 0.02174 or about 2% reduction. Therefore, when all four Jacks are unaccounted for, we have almost a 9% chance of losing upon the Cut; but today, this lethal possibility has been reduced to only around a 6.5% chance.

But what we really must do here is try to find a way to either: Peg Four Holes as Pone, or; beginning with zero 'static' points, somehow defend the position and only allow Dealer to get her or his One Point Pegging Minimum, and then also somehow go out with First Hand Show. In Summary: There's a whole lot o' nothin' goin' on!

Pegging four as Pone is tantamount to pegging TWICE our normal average, and yet given these cards, I'm not so certain that doing this is any more difficult than attempting to generate a Four-Point Hand AFTER we possibly peg nothing at all! SO while we are entitled to try to WIN with either or both tactics, I think it's not unreasonable to focus on the potential pegging aspects! And this indicates that we should maybe retain the lowest-ranking four cards and thus Keep (3 4 6 7) and Toss (J Q) today!

With an Ace on deck, we can now proceed to concentrate on how we might generate four points while pegging, and maybe simultaneously attempt to also defend against the Dealer pegging any more than the one-point Minimum. And so it all boils down to: Which card do we lead today? The Ace Cut might make the Dealer slightly more comfortable unloading a Ten Card (or "X") upon a 4 Card Lead, so I am a bit more inclined to lead our Trey here instead.

Leading the Trey also leaves ourselves a bit better poised to establish either a RUN or a 5 Card Trap. If we can get past the Lead Card unscathed, our chances of pegging first go up, and yet even if we do get a three-card RUN, or a PAIR, or a (15-2), we shall still need to peg an additional point or points! We have our work cut out for us here, but our chances remain greater than zero per-cent, so never give up!
JQT says: There's even a minuscule possibility that, after both Dealer and Pone peg One Point here, that once we score our Two Point Hand, the Dealer could have both a zero-point Hand and Crib (remember, the Jack we discarded was NOT a Heart!), and thus this could proceed to yet another deal at a score of (120*-120)! I've seen 'this kind of crazy' occur in Cribbage before, and my Halscrib game archive screenshot captures actually includes one such occurrence.
glmccuskey
4101 votes

Joined: April 2011
 
 
 
Tuesday 9:19 AM
I’ll lead the three and hope for a six response.
JQT says: Bravo! This is precisely the kind of logic and spirit and optimism that wins these sorts of tricky Cribbage Endgames. The Dealer would not normally seek to 'drop' this low-percentage Pone scoring card response (only three cards could score in retaliation, but at the risk of losing the game; and indeed, such a tactic as this comes to those who study Cribbage carefully, right out of one of Dan Barlow's many superb Cribbage Booklets) such as employing a 6 Card reply after our 3 Card Lead. But the Dealer very well might have retained a hand in which any other response is possibly an even-greater risk, say a Dealer with (2 5 6 6) or similar hand. Or maybe the Dealer holds one 6 Card and has previously discarded another 6 Card, and so he or she plays the 6 Card knowing that only the fourth and final or "case" 6 Card could score upon it ... and BANG!
zeke76 says: Right. Undo optimism is usually a problem, but here it’s what the doctor ordered.
joekayak
1873 votes

Joined: May 2016
 
 
 
Tuesday 12:42 PM
Best of a bad lot.
HalscribCLX
5317 votes

Joined: February 2008
 
 
 
Tuesday 2:27 PM
At 117-119* playing an Offense strategy for the pegging the Dealer Peg Out %s and Our Peg Out %s are:

Offense______Dlr Peg Out %_______Our Peg Out %
3-4-6-7_________85.6_________________2.4
3-4-6-J_________86.8_________________0.8
3-4-6-Q_________86.8_________________0.8
4-6-J-Q_________87.2_________________0.0
3-6-J-Q_________87.6_________________0.4
3-4-7-J_________88.0_________________0.4
3-4-7-Q_________88.0_________________0.4
3-7-J-Q_________88.0_________________0.4
3-4-J-Q_________88.0_________________0.8
3-6-7-Q_________88.8_________________0.0
3-6-7-J_________88.8_________________0.0
4-7-J-Q_________90.0_________________0.0
6-7-J-Q_________91.2_________________1.6
4-6-7-J_________93.6_________________0.0
4-6-7-Q_________93.6_________________0.0

3-4-6-7 minimises the chance of Dealer Pegging Out although it's very high at 85.6% and it also has the best chance of our pegging out at only 2.4%. So I'll select J-Q to discard.

After the A is cut I'll lead the 3 and play Safe:

Lead___________Dealer's Pegging Pts._____Loss %
3____________________(-0.76)_____________40.8
4____________________(-0.84)_____________42.3
6____________________(-0.88)_____________47.0
7____________________(-0.95)_____________50.0
JCM
910 votes

Joined: April 2019
 
 
 
Tuesday 5:07 PM
How do we reconcile Dealer Peg Out at 85.6% with Loss % of 40.8%? What does Loss% actually mean here?
JQT says: When leading as Pone, the program has its most difficult challenge: try to imagine the complexities of leading from one of four cards, with 13 possible ranks as a reply, then with one of three remaining cards, followed by possibly yet another 13 responses, and so on. It quickly soars into millions and maybe even billions of combinations. And so my *guess* is that 40% losing is its best current estimate of our chances of losing ... but it can only "see" so far. In Chess, this is called the "Horizon Effect" and often after making a play (move) the valuation will change, sometimes quite drastically. If Dealer PAIRs the lead, we lose 100%, game over. But if we score two points first, now our losing chances begin to go down. It's a very dynamic thing, but overall, I think the above Win Percentage of 2.4% is much more accurate of our overall chances. And, by not cutting a Jack, immediately our winning chances begin to rise! The 40% loss figure at the juncture of leading during the pegging is way too low, but it probably illustrates the inability of the program to quantify all of the billions of possibilities. Each card played will allow it to become more accurate, and by the time (if and when) we peg our last card, it will then almost certainly have a very accurate evaluation!
JQT says: When leading as Pone, the program has its most difficult challenge: try to imagine the complexities of leading from one of four cards, with 13 possible ranks as a reply, then with one of three remaining cards, followed by possibly yet another 13 responses, and so on. It quickly soars into millions and maybe even billions of combinations. And so my *guess* is that 40% losing is its best current estimate of our chances of losing ... but it can only "see" so far. In Chess, this is called the "Horizon Effect" and often after making a play (move) the valuation will change, sometimes quite drastically. If Dealer PAIRs the lead, we lose 100%, game over. But if we score two points first, now our losing chances begin to go down. It's a very dynamic thing, but overall, I think the above Win Percentage of 2.4% is much more accurate of our overall chances. And, by not cutting a Jack, immediately our winning chances begin to rise! The 40% loss figure at the juncture of leading during the pegging is way too low, but it probably illustrates the inability of the program to quantify all of the billions of possibilities. Each card played will allow it to become more accurate, and by the time (if and when) we peg our last card, it will then almost certainly have a very accurate evaluation!
JCM says: Thanks for clarifying, JQT(should I call you John?) I agree the 40.8% figure seems very strange. - So the moral here is rely on the Peg Out percentages in endgame cases like this, and not the loss % figures.
JCM says: Thanks for clarifying, JQT(should I call you John?) I agree the 40.8% figure seems very strange. - So the moral here is rely on the Peg Out percentages in endgame cases like this, and not the loss % figures.