Score 115*-109. You tossed A-A from A-A-5-6-7-10. The cut is the 8. Pone leads a Q. None of your cards have been diamonds. Your play?

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Dan Barlow:

I play the 6. I don't need to peg, and this leaves me with a diversity of choices. It also lets me shut down the pegging at 31 if pone plays another face card.

John Chambers:

In this particular situation, I would ask a couple of questions. First, do I want to play aggressively or play defensively? Second, if I play on and try to peg, am I willing to give up points that may put my opponent out if I don't peg out? I need to peg six points. That is a lot. My opponent needs 12 points. That is not an easy hand to get. I would play off and force my opponent to peg if he doesn't have enough points in his hand. I would play the 6. If he plays another tenth card, I would play the 5 for 31-2 points. He didn't peg a point in this series.

DeLynn Colvert:

I play the 6, holding the 5 for 31 if opponent plays a second face card. Defense here!

George Rasmussen:

Opponent is not likely to score 12 points on the count of hand, and in fact has only a one-in-three chance to do so. I win this game if opponent does not score the 12 points. There is no need to take 15-2 with the play of the 5. Making that play would improve my opponent's chances to win this game! Play the 6 on the Q lead with a good chance to close the count with the play of the 5. That would leave me with the 7-10, and I believe those cards to be reasonably safe. Only a 8 or 9 as a lead would cause me much anxiety.

Michael Schell:

The 5 wins against pone's 5-5-Q-Q if she leads the second Q next. Else the risk is that I lose against her ten-point hand that I'd otherwise beat. I can't imagine the 6 costing me the game, unless it's to a flush. I think percentages strongly favor playing off with the 6 here. If was starting at 117*, though, I'd definitely play the 5, expecting to find two more pegs along the way.

Phyllis Schmidt:

Play the 6. Stay away from pone! On any reply I still have a good play, and pone's next card may indicate how many points she has.

Peter Setian:

I would probably go with my first instincts and play the 6. That's the only play to guard against more popular holds like 5-5-J-Q, among other specific hands. But I'm sure a few unusual flush hands could be put together to make the 6 or 7 burn you too. Even playing the 5 could burn you with some flush hands like A 5 9 Q. (Now you'll tell me the pone held something unknown in this position like A-A-6-Q, so only the 6 play will burn me). Remember, it's fun and easier to figure all the possibilities and percentages now, but not so much during playing time.

HALSCRIB:

Hold on a minute: at this score I'd have kept A-5-6-7 instead of 5-6-7-10, as this gives me about a 9% edge in pegging out. Note that the A-5-6-7 keep as well as the A-A-5-10 keep will improve after any cut. For you HALSCRIB initiates, I give up about .5% in my winning odds but gain about 3% in not losing by tossing A-10 instead of A-A. For the rest of you, well, sorry if this doesn't make human sense.

With that off my chest, given that I retained 5-6-7-10 after all, on pone's play of the Q, I will make it a unanimous panel and play the 6. This reduces my losing odds to about 2% compared to 12% if I played the 5. There just isn't enough chance to peg out against an opposing hand that's strong enough to otherwise beat me to offset getting burned against something like 5 5 10 Q or 5 10 J Q.

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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.

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.