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Dan Barlow:

In this position, every hole pone pegs is like a rusty knife being twisted in my heart. I happily play the J on his 6 lead, limiting his pegging opportunities. On his 9, it won't matter what I play if his cards are all higher than 5. But if he has one card lower than a 6, I should play an A. That works better if his low card is:

• a 2, 3 or 4
• a 5 accompanied by a ten-card
• an A — possibly — as I'll triple, and his hand won't be worth much

If pone has two cards lower than a 6, his most likely holdings are A-5, 2-4, 3-3 or 4-5. The A works better against half of those. And since it works better against most 1-low-card hands, that's my play.

John Chambers:

In this situation I would play the J on pone's 6 lead. This eliminates your opponent from getting 15 and two points. If on the next play your opponent plays a 9 and makes the count 25, I would play the 4. The higher the count the less likely he will have the needed card for 31. If he does get 31 you can start the next play series knowing he probably won't peg. If he says go at 29, you can play your two aces for four points.

DeLynn Colvert:

On pone's 6 lead I play my J to get the count above 15. Then I play my 4 for 29, hoping to get the aces in for four pegs. Odds are there are no 2s in his hand: the starter rules one one of them, and your 4 reduces the chances of his having a 4 (and thus a 2). Even if pone does have a 2, a two point peg should not beat you.

George Rasmussen:

Dealing at hole 85* is a distinct disadvantage. Dealer must keep hand score and pegging of opponent to minimum. So play in this scenario by dealer needs to be very defensive. On the lead of the 6, the only play is the J. Don't take a chance on giving pone the opportunity to score 15-2 in opening round of play. Pone's play of the 9 on dealer's J puts the count at 25. Play the 4 for 29. Only a deuce can score and a deuce is on the deck. There's a strong likelihood that you will score your aces for 31-4 off the 29 count. The four pegs are of great benefit to dealer, and they close the count.

The possible downside of this is if pone is holding all middle cards. Since you will have played all your cards, pone could then play either a pair or two cards which total 15 to end the play with a three unanswered pegs. If this is the case, nothing is gained by dropping an A on the opening lead of the 6. Pone is likely to score 15-2 at that point and deprive you of the four pegs gained when holding your aces intact.

Michael Schell:

You're -11 going into the deal, with pone +1. You have no particular reason to expect a kick-ass crib, so you must play defensively and hope that your opponent falters either here or later. You'll then be in good shape to go out with your three counts at the end of the game. I refer to this prospect of winning through defense as winning on the back end.

On pone's 6 lead, the J reply is good, getting the count above 15 and exposing dealer to only three losers. When pone plays a 9 next, the obvious reply is to drop the 4 hoping to run the As for 31-4. But this innocuous play can get you into trouble. The danger is that pone is holding a pair or a 15 combination, and will get to run it for a three point peg after you exhaust your cards:

⁶  _J  ⁹  _{4  A  A (31-4)}    ^{7  8 (15-3)}

⁶  _J  ⁹  _{4  A  A (31-4)}    ^{3  3 (6-3)}

⁶  _J  ⁹  _{4  A  A (31-4)}    ^{5  10 (15-3)}

There's nothing you can do about the first scenario, but you can prevent the second one by playing an A instead of your 4. This breaks up pone's pair, giving her no pegs (note that the 6 would be a perfectly reasonable lead from 3-3-6-9 in pone's position). As for the third scenario, playing an A first gives pone a 15-2, but nothing else. True, it lets you peg just one point, instead of four, but reducing pone's tally by one is more important than augmenting your own by three.

Also note that playing an A works out better if pone's last two cards are 2-4. Granted, it's worse if pone is holding 4-5 or 5-6, but I never said this was an easy game!

Phyllis Schmidt:

I start with the J for the obvious reason that it gets the count past 15. I see no reason not to play the 4 next, hoping for:

⁶  _J  ⁹  _{4  A  A (31-4)}

Peter Setian:

I would start with the J, then follow it up with the 4 to make the count 29. The more you try to keep pone from pegging a go, the more likely that pone will peg for a count of 15 or 31.

HALSCRIB:

Hang on a minute! Let's take a closer look at some of the plays the humans are taking for granted. Of course we should start by considering board position. If everything goes according to the averages, we'll end up losing as dealer at 111* while pone goes out with two holes to spare. Since we stand a better chance of shaving three points off pone's scoring down the stretch than adding ten to our own, the right strategy is defense. The other panelists all seem to have figured this out — so why do they hold A-A-4-J unquestioningly, when A-A-4-Q is a safer pegging hand? Because being human, it never occurred to them to split their pair and toss J-Q to the crib!

Keep	Toss		Average   hand	Own  crib	Expected   average	Average pegging:     Net (Pone/Dealer)
A-A-4-J	Q-Q		8.67	4.39	13.06	+1.63 (1.41/3.04)
A-A-4-Q	J-Q		8.39	4.57	12.96	+1.70 (1.28/2.98)

In fact J-Q and Q-Q average about the same in your crib (don't just take my word for it, click here for a second opinion), so the difference in combined hand/crib scoring is trivial. The right play is to retain a Q, which pone is significantly less likely to be able to pair or trap into a run.

But suppose we keep A-A-4-J anyway, and pone cuts a 2 and leads a 6. The right play is not the J, but one of the aces! This gives up an immediate 15-2 to an 8, but that's not as likely as you might think, since a competent opponent would not lead a 6 from most hands containing 6-8 (think 5-6-7-8, 6-7-7-8, 2-6-7-8, etc.). Against 6-7-8-9 the A will do a little better despite the 15-2. Against 4-5-6-9 it'll do a little worse. But what tips the balance is how it does against 6-9-10-J:

⁶  _J  ^J (26-2)  _{4  A (31-2)}    ⁹  _A  ^10 (20-1)

⁶  _A!  ⁹  _A  ^J  _4 (31-2)    ¹⁰  _J (20-1)

Note that I'm not particularly worried about having the A paired, since by tripling it I give myself decent forward chances that offset the two points I've given up. My J, though, is susceptible to being paired, since it's by far the most likely ten-card for pone to have kept.

Now that we've set the record straight on the discard and the reply to pone's lead, let's look at the next question, which concerns the right reply to pone's 9:

⁶  _J  ⁹  _?

I think dropping an A is a tad safer than playing high with the 4, for the reasons given by Barlow and Schell. Glad we can agree on something!

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.