Thursday 3:20 AM

Having written enough to fill an entire VOLUME about the ubiquitous Toss (6 7) Discard onto *either side* of the board, let me at least attempt to keep this brief. (The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry...)

In the section "Discarding to Your Own Crib" under the heading of "Star Power," RAS has given Toss (6 9) the sad but fitting moniker of being lumped in an "Also Ran" discard. That's right: Toss (6 9) doesn't even warrant One Star! So, as a solution to today's challenging puzzle, why might we place an "Everything Else" discard into our Own Crib?

Okay, so you might have experimented with trying something akin to Toss (6 7) once or twice, and after having failed, naturally you reverted back to your old, Toss (6 9) ways. Shame on you! What happened, in my opinion (and experience), is that: you didn't try it LONG ENOUGH!

Toss (6 7) begins with NOTHING and results in a Crib Average that not only regularly beats the 'likes' of Toss (Q Q) and Toss (K K), but goes on to exceed Toss (T T) and sometimes even Toss (9 9)! Also, Toss (6 7) allows for both our Maximum Hand (Ten Points) and our Maximum Crib (Twenty-Four Points) today, and who doesn't like that?!

Therefore, I shall Toss (6 7) confidently today. Had we been further down the board and/or somehow stuck in "Savage Beast Mode" today, perhaps we could have also examined Toss (J J), or even that 'long-lost cousin' of both Toss (3 4) and Toss (6 7), otherwise known as Toss (J Q).

But Toss (6 7) here seems to make a *much more logical* 'split' among the six cards that we were dealt. It's too early in the game (and in the morning) for me to try to become uber-creative, beyond of course ignoring the pitfalls that often accompany Toss (6 9), I think.

We cannot leave this intriguing Discarding Decision without once again bringing up and addressing that controversial topic of a Jack or Jacks that may or may not end up in the Crib (especially the Dealer's Crib) and that Dastardly Daemon: Intrinsic Points! Every potential Jack that might find itself on a Discard Table (especially those that are computer-generated) almost invariably ends up getting inflated by approximately 0.25 points due to Nobs, which of course we shall SCORE ANYWAY regardless of whether said Jack ends up in our Crib or not. We have discussed this issue on numerous occasions on this site, and a very good example of this occurred in May 2014, so I would recommend that players especially take note of Coeurdelion's response to my entry on the topic on that day. REF: https://www.dailycribbagehand.org/show.php?date=2014-05-03

For these reasons, back in 2012, the Cribbage Pro Blog actually created and posted an entire article (along with a color-coded, Red State/Blue State chart!) showing how these "Intrinsic Points" can potentially inflate the Discard Tables. This phenomenon especially affects any potential discard(s) that contain points, such as PAIRS and (15-2s), as well as Jacks. For those who end up memorizing and/or using Discard Tables and who may therefore Toss (J J) today, I think that it's well worth your time to both read and try to fully understanding this issue. REF: http://blog.cribbagepro.net/2012/10/discarding.html

After the perhaps-somewhat-helpful and yet-to-be-determined 7d Cut, I'll prepare to peg cautiously (which, given my hand, simply means that I'll at least look at my cards before I plunk them down). Many apologies as in so much for any attempt to keep this brief!

   

Thursday 3:31 AM

Best case scenario, get a ten cut they also have a fractured face card hand you can peg against and to them a useless 8-? gets discarded to the crib. Looks like after cut both may not even make it deep onto to first street. Should put conservative or just plain ugly to this deal? dec

   

Thursday 4:43 AM

Pretty cut and dried hold today-lousy hand so keep the 2 in the hand and 2 in the crib and hope the cut hits one of them-see no value here in only keeping 2 to throw 6-7 in the crib-that discard looks a lot better than it usually counts,as pone is very unlikely to help you with the discard of a 5,so while it’s technically open ended for all intents and purposes it really isn’t.obviously pone could throw an 8 in,but it’s a 60 percent chance he throws a 6 or 9 instead,giving me a guaranteed 6 in the crib before the cut

   

Thursday 4:53 AM

Preferred to hold 2 points in the hand and 2 points in the crib. As Rob says pone is unlikely to toss us a 5 so the 6-7 is not really open ended. Incidentally Ras has 6-9 valued at 5.11 points vs. 6-7 at 5.14 points.

   

Thursday 5:02 AM

Having used this site for a little while now, I'm familiar with the comments from John, and from Aaron Harsch on CribbagePro blog, with regards the 6-7 discard and the concept of "intrinsic value".

222,5555,666,777,8888,9999 = 22/46 possible cuts that immediately work with my discard.

   

Thursday 5:44 AM

toss the touchies?

   

Thursday 7:23 AM

I have defended the 69 throw many times: although it is hard to get a run, very often the opponent will throw 6X or 9X.

   

Thursday 7:49 AM

Like keeping the touching cards together for possible double run on both sides and I think 6-9 is strongest throw to our crib from this hand while keeping total of 4 points. Thought about 6-7 toss, but rather keep the points at this stage in the game.

   

Thursday 8:14 AM

Going for a big hand or big crib this early in the game.

   

Thursday 9:37 AM

Decided on (6 7) discard, retaining 9-J-J-K - before reading any comments - I like to do it that way.

Am gratified to see JQT and I agree. (Seems any time I disagree with him I'm wrong(but close, like yesterday!).

In our crib (5 7) is about equal weight to (9 6)- actually worth a microgram more.

At 12*-13 we would like to make 32+ pts to hit 44 next time we are dealer. (IOW, we're about 6 pts behind and need to play offensively to try to cover that 6 pt gap.) After the 7 cut, we have only 2 or 3 in hand. Was hoping for maybe a double run or a 5-cut, but such is life. But potentially a fine crib, with 6-7-7 known to be there. Did Opp discard an 8-something? Especially an 8-6? Or an 8-9? Or even a 2-6 or 2-7? With pegging, these cribs could get us well along the way to, in two deals, making those 32 pts, or near to that.

Take whatever points you can in pegging. Pair a J lead. Pair a Q lead. Pair a 9 lead. 15 a 6 lead. Of course, 15 any 5 lead, if he should do that.

   

Thursday 9:50 AM

Typo:

"In our crib (5 7)..." should read "In our crib (6 7)...."

   

Thursday 10:49 AM

Not like I haven't been here before, all alone. While I did not know anything about 1 star per RAS, I did know 9,6 in the crib is nothing to write home about. I don't have any tables memorized eiter, that's not why a tossed the Jacks. I wanted to keep the whole 4 points, keep the 6,7 together, and peg with lower non X cards.

   

Thursday 3:56 PM

With a poor hand I'd opt for discarding close cards to our box. But here we have 4pts so we can keep 2+2pts or 4+0pts or sacrifice 2pts with 2+0pts:

7-J-J-Q: 2pts + 5¼pts (Schell: 5.13) = 7¼pts

6-9-J-J: 4pts + 3¼pts (Schell: 3.23) = 7¼pts

9-J-J-Q: 2pts + 5pts (Schell: 4.98) = 7pts

6-7-9-JD: 2pts + 4¾pts (Schell: 4.81) = 6¾pts

6-7-9-Q: 2pts + 5¼pts (Schell: 5.33) = 7¼pts

Potential:

7-J-J-Q: Improves with 5555, 777, 8888 + 13xxs = 24 cuts = 52.2% up to 6/8pts with 5555, 10101010, JJ, KKKK = 14 cuts. Plus 21 diamonds and clubs for 1pt extra for his nob = 21/46 = 0.46pt

6-9-J-J: Improves with 5555, 666, 999, 10101010, JJ = 16 cuts = 16/46 = 34.8% up to 8/10pts with all cuts. Plus 21 diamonds and clubs for 1pt extra for his nob = 21/46 = 0.46pt

9-J-J-Q: Improves with 5555, 666, 999 + 13xXs = 23 cuts = 23/46 = 50.0% up to 6/8pts with 5555, 10101010, JJ, KKKK = 14 cuts. Plus 21 diamonds and clubs for 1pt extra for his nob = 21/46 = 0.46pt

6-7-9-JD: Improves with 2222, 5555, 666, 777, 8888, 999, 10101010, JJ = 27 cuts = 27/46 = 58.7% up to 5/6/7/8pts with 5555, 666, 8888, 999, 10101010 = 18 cuts. Plus 11 diamonds for 1pt for his nob = 11/46 = 0.24pt.

6-7-9-Q: Improves with 2222, 5555, 666, 777, 8888, 999, QQQ = 24 cuts = 24/46 = 52.2% up to 6/7/8pts with 5555, 666, 8888, 999 = 14 cuts.

Position:

It looks like its 2nd deal and we've scored 2pts above average and first Dealer scored 3pts below. We still have a positional disadvantage though so I'll play Offense.

Pegging:

I think 6-7-9-Q and 6-7-9-JD will peg best.

Summary:

6-7-9-Q has the same starting value as two others although it doesn't have the benefit of the nob potential in hand. It has no more cuts for improvement than the other hands but the improvement from 2pts to 6-8pts is tremendous. 6-7-9-J has a few more cuts but starts with ½pt less but has approx. ¼pt for the nob potential. 6-9-J-J has the best maximum at 10pts but it starts with 4pts. 6-7-9-Q and 6-7-9-JD should also peg better. I'll throw the suited J-Q.

   

Thursday 7:55 PM

No real good choice. Keep 2 in hand 2 in crib. Best of a bad lot.