Guest says: This is reminiscent of those infamous 1978 lyrics by one Jim Steinman, words that were so well sung by "Meat Loaf" alongside the powerhouse Ellen Foley in the song titled, "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" that culminate in the lines: "I can see paradise by the dashboard light / Ain't no doubt about it we were doubly blessed / 'Cause we were barely seventeen and we were barely dressed." And so, what was the question? Oh, that "Sweet Sixteen" (or "Sweet 'Barely Seventeen' " as it were, I think it may be helpful, but prior to the Cut, we need Four Points and not merely Two Points, so in addition to Elevens and Sixteens, we are also having to be concerned with 'snagging' points any way we can today, with either (15-2s) or PAIRS ("PEARS" i.e., other 'low-hanging' fruit of any sort), etc. And while we know three-card variants of both Magic Elevens and Sweet Sixteens can often work more reliably, as the Dealer, a two-card variation *will* still work. And most importantly: Two Cards is HALF of our hand, and Two Points is only Half of our Goal today! Because we need even more than to pull off one successful 'heist' here. But more to your point: "Sweet Sixteens" involve essentially the 'trap' or isolation of the commonly-held 5 Card, which gets us to a total of Twenty-One and then with any Ten Card (or "X") it yields Thirty-One. The bias for Pone to hold a 5 Card is certainly less today, but it's not entirely gone, since Pone does wish to "cover" Four Holes with First Hand Show. And yet if Pone does not need a 5 Card to reach those Four Holes, Pone is not likely to be too motivated to retain such a card. But Pone is also even more biased to hold defensive pegging cards today, if at all possible, as thus with a hand such as (2 3 5 5 J K), we have to ponder whether Pone would hold the (I think) riskier (2 3 J K) or would Pone hold (2 5 5 K) or (2 5 J K) in this instance? Pone is often twisted and contorted into a dark corner concerning what to hold onto and what to discard when needing to peg ultra-defensively and yet still needing to "cover" a certain number of points, and so a card such as a King becomes a high-bias defensive card and may 'drag along' with it a much lower-bias card such as a 5 Card out of necessity. Therefore, I believe that trying to win such an endgame here as the Dealer, also from Four Holes distant, becomes an exercise in getting into the mind of our Opponent or "Pone" and trying to "suss out" his or her ideas and/or intentions. If I think about it more, perhaps I'll come up with something better, but until then, maybe: "Let me sleep on it..." And I'd be entirely remiss if I didn't include a link to the original version of that Meat Loaf Song: https://youtu.be/C11MzbEcHlw

zeke76 says: I must say I’ve found the king vs. jack discussion interesting. Mostly because it shows me that my thinking is too shallow.