Suppose you're pone and find yourself holding 10 J Q K. Assuming none of the other cards you've seen are ten-cards, what would you ordinarily lead from this hand if it's early in the game? To what extent does your decision depend on board position?

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Dan Barlow:

If I were desperate to prevent opponent from pegging, I would lead the J, planning to play the Q next. My guess is that if opponent held onto at least one face card, and threw at least one away, he probably threw a J, figuring that's the face card I'm least likely to give him, and therefore the one he should toss in hopes of scoring a run in the crib. So there's slightly less chance my J will be paired if I lead it. By coming down to 10-K, I have a better chance of avoiding his scoring a run at the end of the play.

If I am the one who desperately needs to peg, I lead the Q, and follow with the K, hoping to later score a run with my 10-J if dealer happens to have a 9 at the end. He's more likely to have a 9 than any ten-card.

John Chambers:

Being the non-dealer in this situation, you need to ask yourself: if you were the dealer, which of those cards would you be likely to keep and which ones would you be more likely to discard to the crib? If I'm the dealer and have those cards, naturally I would discard either the 10 or the K. If it was my crib I would discard the 10. Which means that the best card to lead, if playing off, is the 10. Of course, you may want to peg, so what would you do? First, you must try to think about what your opponent could be holding. If he has a similar hand, whichever card you play he could pair. If his hand is different from yours, the most likely tenth card to keep would be a J because it is a potential point. So you wouldn't lead the J. And you wouldn't lead the 10 or K because they would be easier to play off against. So you would play the Q.

DeLynn Colvert:

I lead the K, hoping to catch a 10, and also keeping a three-card run in hopes of grabbing a pegging run myself later on.

George Rasmussen:

Since playing board position is of critical importance from hole 1, understand that any decision made by me in this case is influenced by position. If board position is favorable, I would lead the J, as that is the face card most likely to be tossed to dealer crib.

What?

If you look carefully at what takes place in this game, among those twenty most frequent discards to dealer crib are J-Q, 10-J, J-K, 5-J and J-J. The J is present in all five of these discard combos. The K is the most frequent of the face cards to be retained by the dealer:

• In any dealer hand that contains triple As, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s or 8s with 9-10-J, 10-J-Q, J-Q-K, or J-J-x, what will dealer discard?
• In hands that contain double runs (A-A-2-3, 2-2-3-4, 3-3-4-5, 4-4-5-6, 5-5-6-7, 6-6-7-8) with 10-J, J-Q or J-J, what will dealer discard?
• In hands that contain A-A-4 or 2-2-3 with three ten-point cards, dealer's choice will be J-Q, J-J, 10-J as available
• In hands such as 2-3-4 with 9-10-J, 10-J-Q, J-J-K or J-Q-K, the J will be tossed to crib
• In hands such as 3-4-5-6 with 10-J, J-J or J-Q, where is the J headed?
• In hands such as 3-4-5-7 or 3-4-5-8 with 10-J, J-J or J-Q what will the dealer's discard choice be?
• In hands with 4-5-6-10-J-K or 4-5-6-J-J-K, bet that the Js are in dealer's crib
• In hands such as 5-6-7-8-10-J, 5-6-7-8-Q and 5-6-7-8-J-K, the seasoned player will discard the 5-J since that discard averages nearly seven points to the crib. The inexperienced player will toss the two ten-pointers. But in either case the J is in dealer's crib
• In hands that look like 6-7-8-9-10-J, 6-7-8-9-J-J or 6-7-8-9-J-Q, those Js will be in the crib

There are many other examples of this. So don't believe that the K is the least likely ten-card retained by the dealer — it is actually the most likely ten-pointer to be held! Your J lead is less likely to be paired than your other possible leads. In addition, by leading the key connector among the ten-point cards you are substantially reducing the chance of having a run scored on you later in the play if dealer is holding face cards. (Of course, if dealer has a 5, then 15-2 is scored on any of your leads.)

Conversely, if you don't like where you are on the board, lead the K and hold the 10-J-Q intact. You have a small chance of picking up a pair or run later in the play, depending on the hand composition of your opponent.

Michael Schell:

A lot of players (and writers) will try to reason out which ten-cards dealer is likely to have held, as opposed to thrown to the crib. Statistical studies, though, have shown pretty conclusively that in normal situations the J, Q and K are all equally likely to be present in dealer's hand, and the 10 is slightly more likely to be present than the others. I've written about this at length in my article Card frequency in cribbage. The upshot to it is that if you haven't seen any other ten-cards (whose presence would obviously affect the odds), the one card you shouldn't lead from 10-J-Q-K is the 10, which is statistically the most pairable. Choosing among the remaining cards is a matter of strategy and psychology.

If you're playing on, the guiding principle is to keep your touching cards together to maximize your chances of trapping dealer into a run or a pair. Accordingly you would lead the K. If you can't score on dealer's first card, you'll play either your 10 or Q next. (If dealer's first card is an A through 5, I'd save J-Q for last hoping to trap a ten-card. If it's a 6 through 9, I'd save my 10-J for last hoping to trap a 9.) Playing off, the principle is the opposite: lead from the middle of a run to keep your remaining cards as dispersed as possible, thereby minimizing the chance that dealer will trap you into a run or a pair. Under this principle, either the J or Q is a reasonable lead. There may be a psychological reason to favor the J. Some players are still under the impression that leading from a lone J is a Bad Idea, and may therefore be reluctant to pair your J lead, fearful that it came from a pair. If you judge your opponent to be in this category, then plunk down your J with confidence. If you've used this ploy against him before, though, you might want to keep him honest with a Q. Either way, your plan is to drop the other interior card second, leaving you with the safe 10-K for last.

Phyllis Schmidt:

I lead the 10 regardless of board position. There's not much you can do with four face cards except to hopefully stay out of trouble.

Peter Setian:

I would lead the 10 from most any position, since I have the K in my hand. For if the dealer is "stuck" with high cards (8 thru K), the 10 lead gives you the best chance to peg on the next card. I may lead the J only from a very defensive board position, to keep the more extreme options (10-K) open, which may help to stay away from pegging trouble.

HALSCRIB:

C'mon humans, get a life. There's hardly a dime's worth of difference between these choices:

	Average pegging:
	Net	(pone/dealer)
10	-2.04	(1.50/3.54)
J	-2.17	(1.36/3.53)
Q	-2.08	(1.45/3.54)
K	-2.01	(1.56/3.57)

Since I have to pick something, I'll lead the J for defense and the K for offense and balanced play. But I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Panelists

Dan Barlow won the 1980 National Open Cribbage Tournament, and made the 1985 All American Cribbage Team. His cribbage strategy articles appeared in Cribbage World for many years, and can be seen on the ACC Web site. He also provides strategy tips at MSN Gaming Zone. He has written seven books on cribbage, two of which have been glowingly reviewed in Games Magazine. All, including his latest book Winning Cribbage Tips, are available at The Cribbage Bookstore.

John Chambers was one of the original founding members of the ACC. He is a Grand Master, winner of seven major tournaments, and author of Cribbage: A New Concept, He also directs three annual tournaments: the Ocean State Cribbage Classic, New England Peer Championship and Charity Cribbage Challenge.

HALSCRIB is widely regarded as the world's strongest computer cribbage player. Its opinion was solicited using a special analysis version of the program. Since HALSCRIB only speaks binary, its thoughts have been translated into English by Michael Schell and its creator, Hal Mueller, a retired mathematics professor and eight-time ACC tournament winner. For more information, see the HALSCRIB home page.