Competitive Cribbage - Autumn 2023

The Autumn 2023 Competitive Cribbage Season has officially commenced!

The excellent competition in the (slightly shorter than usual) Summer 2023 season of competitive cribbage has come to a close, with all the statistics and top performers recorded. The season started off very busy, as is becoming a trend, with a lot of participants and some more new faces. More total games and matches were played this season than in the last season, and more than in many others as well. It was a busy one for many.

As we start into the Autumn 2023 season, there are no significant changes to the format. I know there are still desires for some changes, and we are still planning to do some, so I truly appreciate everyone's patience with that. After a bit more about last season, we have some important news about changes for Contest play as well, so be sure to read through to the bottom of this post for that.

The onset of Summer 2023 ushered in a wave of eager participants, with fresh faces gracing the Leaderboard. I'm sure some of you were thinking we may not see some of the past top players when the season first started, but that definitely changed as things progressed. The competition throughout the season was fierce, especially during the closing weeks at the pinnacle of the Leaderboard. These final weeks were marked by a captivating back-and-forth struggle, akin to a dynamic game of "musical chairs" as mentioned by some social media posts about the season. Watching "Mrpadre" move up to first place, then shortly later back down in what was essentially the final moments of the season, was both surprising and exciting to watch!

A sincere thanks again to all who took part, both as active contenders on the Leaderboard and as those just having a good time competing against your friend's ranks. It truly does take all of you to make a season work, and so thank you all for playing. Regardless of whether you found a spot within the coveted Top 50, the commitment and engagement shown by each of you is appreciated. It really does take all of you to make a season! Lastly, I just want to again acknowledge and extend a special thank you to those who introduced their friends to the exhilarating world of cribbage, and particularly our competitive cribbage format.

In 1st place for Summer 2023, we have "rookie22" up from 3rd last season. This top spot had some back and forth, even up to the very last few minutes of the season where a few final games made the difference to holding on! 2nd place is also someone we have seen before, "Mrpadre", up from 33rd last season. 3rd place goes to "iPeg", who really doesn't need much of an introduction, but was super fun to watch trade places as they broke into the Top 50 this season after joining in quite a bit later than usual. As a kind of honorable mention this season, we have "Saskie" finishing 4th, who was our 1st place last season. It looks like perhaps there was a "push" to try and get a few final games in by several players over the final days and hours, that caused a lot of back and forth in those top spots! That strategy may have worked for some, while not so much for others.

Other interesting movements in the Top 50 included "holinzend", up 25 places to finish 5th. "cbx1000z" who wasn't in the Top 50 last season, but finished in 7th place, "nob4one" finished in 10th up from 46th, and many others making big moves from past seasons as well!! The atmosphere was electric as we observed an exhilarating showdown for the leading ranks during the conclusive phase of this season. The recent weeks brought us closely contested rankings that had us on the edge of our seats. It was truly a delight to watch, and I sincerely trust that the enjoyment you experienced matched the enthusiasm I felt! Congratulations to each and every one of you for your exceptional displays of skill!

A special acknowledgment for all who achieved a place within the Top 50 this season! As recognition for your amazing achievement, you have been awarded with the special in-game "board peg" that represents your accomplishment. The top finisher is awarded the "crown" board peg, and all others in the Top 50 are awarded a "star" board peg. These pegs are shown to everyone when playing in online multiplayer games, and they are permanent, so if you see your opponent has one of them you can know that they have earned it by finishing in the Top 50 in competitive play.

Remember: Complete 10 matches per week! See the FAQ for details.

Here was the final Top 50 for Summer 2023:

1	rookie22	26	VGKnights
2	Mrpadre	27	snysocal
3	iPeg	28	Domerzag
4	Saskie	29	Ssams
5	holinzend	30	cutajack
6	ernie313	31	drg151
7	cbx1000z	32	seachica
8	BigBuck63	33	scoot1234
9	flashmatt	34	jcy12
10	nob4one	35	Paxter
11	TrumpetJ	36	yvanobc12
12	linurbug9	37	gmric5
13	URTRSHBRO	38	tyranmorr
14	bigshane0	39	plumbobby
15	dkatz1877	40	SamGash33
16	Geofred1	41	MondoMan
17	nvsru911	42	dixietix
18	jwood8	43	dcpastore
19	lbolt58	44	warrior14
20	WhyADuck	45	Ricecak11
21	rattle15	46	Dpac
22	Gssj21	47	Paludeja
23	brettniko	48	dph
24	yank29	49	ZagFan66
25	a2zCrib	50	card55

The levels in Competitive Matchmaking are available in the FAQ.

Contest News - Cribbage Pro Contests is Retiring

For those who have been playing in past competitive cribbage seasons, you may notice something different this time around. Starting from this season onward, we're taking a different route by not giving out Cribbage Pro Gold awards for the Top 50. Very few of those Promotional Gold awards given out in the past were ever used, so practically speaking this isn't a significant change for most of you. Still, I wanted to share some insight into what is going on with the Contests system and why Cribbage Pro Gold wasn't awarded this season.

All players who were eligible to cash out their Cribbage Pro Gold have already received notifications about this. However, for those who are not yet aware, I'd like to share that the Cribbage Pro Contests system has gone into retirement and officially closed as of August 15th, 2023. There are several factors as to why that is, but after much consideration, and particularly given the limited popularity of Contests, we've decided it's the right time to move forward and focus on other work. This allows us to shift our focus towards other areas of the game while we work on bringing in more exciting features for all of you to enjoy! Thank you to everyone in the Cribbage Pro community who actively participated in the Contests system. We're working hard on introducing new and exciting features for you to enjoy in the future, possibly with that Gold still being used. Your continued support means the world to us, and we can't wait to share these new updates with you!

If you still have Cribbage Pro Gold in your account that is more than only "Promotional Gold" (so Gold that you actually either purchased or Promotional Gold that you used in a Contest and won as a prize amount - making it eligible to be cashed out), you can still cash that out if you missed the initial transition/retirement window. Simply email us any time with your request (email from the email address on your account, and include your username). The cash out process will be done manually now that the Contest system is retired, so it will run a little slower, but we will still get you cashed out. We will hold that cash out system open for an entire year from the date the Contests system ended (so until Aug. 15th 2024).

For those who have Promotional Gold that doesn't have a cash out value, like that which was awarded for a past competitive season and never used, it is still there on your account (even though future updates to the app will remove the Contests section so you may not see it). We hope to bring some new features in the future where you can make use of it at that time. As such, we will continue to not enforce the 6 month expiration of Promotional Gold, so it will stay there on your account. We don't have any more details to announce right now about what those features will be, but we will share more when we can.

If you have any questions, feedback on what you would like to see around prizes, structure or anything else, email us any time at support@FullerSystems.com.