Ask the experts, February 2007

The score's 86*-84: What do you toss yourself from 2-8-10-J-J-K?

Dan Barlow:

If I keep the K, a 9 will come up. If I keep the 8 a Q will come up. You just can't win. So I toss myself 2-K. Opponent might throw me a 3 to go with that. He's unlikely to throw me a 5 to go with 2-8.

DeLynn Colvert:

I toss the 2-8, keeping both ends open with the 10-J-J. With such weak cards I'll keep for maximum count and peg for maximum as well.

George Rasmussen:

Interesting hand for sure. One could argue that holding 10-J-J intact is the essence of the hand, with run possibilities in either direction. Little exists in the way of pegging opportunity on this two point hand. Not much pegging potential exists with tossing J-J to the crib and retaining 2-8-10-K either. That being the case, I'm going to play 8-10-J-J and discard 2-K to my crib. By the way, a small difference in this hand would prompt me to toss the J-J to crib. If the remaining cards were 3-8-10-K, that 11 combination of 3-8 would sway me to discard J-J.

Michael Schell:

Pone starts the deal -2, while I'm +16. This trumps everything, despite the lousy cards I dealt myself. I'm going to eschew the normal alternatives of 2-10-J-J, 8-10-J-J and 10-J-J-K in favor of the defensive 2-8-10-K. Even if I only score four or five points total this hand, I'll still be in decent position to get to 96* or better with my first count as pone. I can't afford to let my opponent get into position by scoring anything above average here.

Phyllis Schmidt:

There's not much here to hold, but if I keep 8-10-J-J, then both ends are open. I have to catch a break with the up card.

Peter Setian:

Normally I would throw 8-10. But being in such a conservative position, and needing to hold back the opponent, I would toss J-J and hold the variety of cards to defend against pegging.

HALSCRIB:

Seems like a simple question. But in this position my first goal is to minimize pone's scoring, and if I make the natural toss of 2-9, then pone will peg one point more on average than if I keep 2-8-10-K. With average scoring, I'll still get to 121 "on time", so I'm going to sacrifice some combined hand/crib scoring and toss the Js to keep the four well-spaced cards.

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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.

DeLynn Colvert (1931–2019) is the highest rated tournament player in the history of organized cribbage. He was a five-time National Champion, author of Play Winning Cribbage, longtime editor of the monthly magazine Cribbage World, and the ACC's only Life Master - Seven Stars. He also directed two annual tournaments in Missoula, MT, served as the ACC's President, and was one of the game's most affable emissaries. It's scarcely an exaggeration to say that Colvert's career defines modern cribbage.

George "Ras" Rasmussen is a Life Master - Two Stars, a four-time All-American, the national Grass Roots Division 1 champion in 2009, a former state champion in Virginia, Montana and Washington, and holds a Gold Award and a President's Award. He also directs the Washington State Championship, held each year in Centralia, WA. His articles on cribbage are available on the ACC Web site.

Michael Schell is a pioneer of modern cribbage theory, which synthesizes traditional concepts of expert play with new computer-informed insights and analysis. He has published Cribbage Forum since 2000. Schell holds a Bronze Award, is a Washington State Champion (2001), and was one of the principal architects of ACC Internet Cribbage.

Phyllis Schmidt is a charter member of the ACC, and has been playing cribbage for about 40 years. She is a Life Master - One Star, a Senior Judge, a National Champion (1992) and winner of the ACC Tournament of Champions (2005). She attends about 30 tournaments a year.

Peter Setian has played cribbage for over 20 years, and has been a member of the ACC for about 14 years. During that time, he has won seven major tournaments and earned his Life Master rating. He plays in about eight tournaments per year, including the ACC Tournament of Champions and the annual Grand National. He enjoys participation in Grass Roots Club #72.

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.

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