The Winter 2024 Competitive Cribbage Season is Live!
The Autumn 2023 season of competitive cribbage has wrapped up, and it was one for the record books! There were more players in the Autumn competitive season than we have seen in a long time. The competition was fierce, with some recognizable names in the world of cribbage also in the Leaderboard. The season started off extremely active, and just ramped up from there every week. I had thought that with the previous season being so active, many would slow down this time, but it was exactly the opposite! I know many of you noticed how busy things were, and with many new players (new to our competitive play, but clearly not new to cribbage itself) in the mix, it was very challenging.
New Season Updates
I want to quickly cover a handful of new season updates before providing a short summary of the end of the Autumn season. Some matchmaking adjustments have been made. We have tightened up the matchmaking algorithm in respect to what constitutes as an acceptable match between players of different estimated skill levels and expected match outcomes. There are several factors that the system considers when finding a match, and they have all had their limits narrowed to at least some degree. At the same time, other changes were made that will have the system progress through all possible matches just a little faster than in past seasons. Ultimately, we hope to see matches a little closer in ranking on average, and slightly fewer matches with larger skill rank differences, while also finding matches faster for everyone. Of course the best way to keep match wait times down is to continue to invite your friends to play! That is by far the biggest factor when finding a match, so do please encourage your fellow cribbage players to participate.
We have also enhanced how the "wait time" works while finding a match. Previously, if you started finding a match, then canceled and started again for any reason, your wait time in the matchmaking system would reset each time you started finding a match. That will no longer be the case. If you cancel finding a match, and then start again, the system will retain the original start time to calculate your total wait time. It will then "timeout" if no match is found based on when you first started finding a match. If you were someone who would stop and start a lot in a short period of time, and so rarely see any time out message, you may get the "no match found" message more often than before. If you were someone who would start finding a match and wait patiently, then this won't impact you at all. To further clarify, the total wait time before timing out has not changed. At 120 seconds from the first press of "Find Match", it will stop searching even if you canceled and restarted multiple times during that time. After those 2 minutes, regardless of if you saw the "no match found" message, if you start finding a match again, it will start the clock again too.
Autumn 2023 Wrap Up
Once again, my gratitude goes out to everyone who took part in the Autumn 2023 season. Your participation truly makes all the difference. Your dedication and involvement, whether or not you secured a place in the Top 50, mean a lot. Each player's contribution to our cribbage community is invaluable. Your enthusiasm and commitment elevate the competitive atmosphere, and make every match memorable and exciting. Thank you for being an essential part of this competition, and in bringing the incredible game of cribbage to others!
In 1st place for Autumn 2023, we have "Dhrun", who didn't place last season, but in the season just prior was in 2nd. They held that top spot for a while this season, and it was a tough season. "Dhrun" has also been in 2nd and 3rd place multiple times in past seasons, so it is really great to see them hit 1st place this time! 2nd place is also someone we have seen before too, but much more recently, "Saskie", who is up from 4th last season, and who was our "honorable mention" the season before. We are starting to get used to seeing them a lot around here as they had 1st a few seasons back too. 3rd place goes to "lbolt58", who was 19th last season (and 21st before that, and 29th before that), so quite an improvement! "konadive" held 3rd for a little while this season, but just couldn't quite hold on for the finish. They get our honorable mention this season.
Other interesting movements in the Top 50 included "VGKnights", up 21 places to finish 5th. "dph" moved up all the way from 48th last season to be 9th. As an interesting player note, "dph" has been playing in Cribbage Pro since at least February of 2011. They are one of a few long time players who play in the competitive system. So, a special thank you to "dph" for playing for so many years!
It was a lot of fun watching some names climb up (like "iPeg" making a late run to break into the top 10), and even fun to watch some who I thought were going to take it all, get bumped down this season. Although I'm sure it wasn't as much fun to actually be the player who dropped in standing, I hope that you all enjoyed the competition. Congratulations to you all for your putting your skills to the test!
As always, a special acknowledgment goes to those who achieved a place within the Top 50! As recognition for your efforts and display of skill, you have been awarded with an 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 Autumn 2023:
| 1 | Dhrun | 26 | dcpastore |
| 2 | Saskie | 27 | Mrpadre |
| 3 | lbolt58 | 28 | AZwriter |
| 4 | konadive | 29 | Geofred1 |
| 5 | VGKnights | 30 | networker |
| 6 | cyrusg | 31 | james500 |
| 7 | rpmcd | 32 | QuinnA |
| 8 | Muldeezee | 33 | scout3 |
| 9 | dph | 34 | ape0123 |
| 10 | iPeg | 35 | SMP0001 |
| 11 | super101 | 36 | cribfan44 |
| 12 | nob4one | 37 | GoldStar1 |
| 13 | kdkauf | 38 | 808HWK |
| 14 | locust | 39 | ovaeezy |
| 15 | elocke83 | 40 | linurbug9 |
| 16 | Br1Guy | 41 | rattle15 |
| 17 | hillchem | 42 | pegmstr77 |
| 18 | mountains | 43 | WhyADuck |
| 19 | Warpegs | 44 | DrewBlue |
| 20 | Gasman67 | 45 | TrumpetJ |
| 21 | Alaska47 | 46 | rocks19 |
| 22 | BigCrbNRG | 47 | Domerzag |
| 23 | salo25 | 48 | gmax |
| 24 | ernie313 | 49 | UberPooch |
| 25 | BrutusSt | 50 | drg151 |
I'd rather start searching for a game and stop/restart than be penalized by getting matched up against a player with a massive CR gap just because there aren't enough people playing.
ReplyDeleteJust finished my first game and got 5+ notifications that my opponent exceeded the time limit. Don't see why this can't be fixed. Shouldn't take 8 seconds to cut the deck and another 8 seconds to play a card, all while they pile up time violations and the match continues. I thought you were going to to enable a visible counter so we could see the actual number of times each player received a warning instead of always getting fake pop-up messages?
Rewriting the entire timer system is going to take some time.
DeleteThe changes this season do help keep people from trying to "game the system" by starting and stopping constantly. Being matched with a lower CR opponent is an important part of any matchmaking system. There are limits to keep that difference within a mathematically reasonable amount, and those limit factors were also adjusted. That said, I doubt everyone will ever agree on what those limits should be. If it starts looking lik like those limits need more tweaking, we will adjust.
So as I understand...there will no longer be an advantage to using the "10 second rule" when dialling up opponents in match play?
ReplyDeleteWaiting 10 seconds and then restarting the matchmaking will now have zero difference between that and just waiting without restarting.
DeleteYes, absolutely! The CR you see is actually not really used at all in the system. It is always about the underlying factors, like the confidence factor, for all calculations. Still, there may still be more to do there to get the best matches possible particularly later in the season, so I'm monitoring things a bit more this season.
ReplyDeleteIf the data was available, it would be interesting to string all of the seasons together and see how the results came out. Probably the best way would be to combine the results from day 1 of each season, then day 2, etc, instead of linking them in a chain (end of season 1 to beginning of season 2, etc)
ReplyDeleteWe don't have daily Leaderboard archives for every season, unfortunately.
DeleteI played 2 games last night and 3 today, went 2-3 but it's showing I've only finished 4 games.
ReplyDeleteThese kinds of account related questions are generally best answered over email, but since I know your account I can answer here too. I see all 5 matches you mentioned. However, the 2nd match was a win by disconnect. As such, it counts as a win for you, but not towards the placement matches count itself. This is part of how the system works to avoid a potential way to game the system otherwise. For the person who disconnected, they get a full loss, a penalty, and that loss counts towards their placement matches.
DeleteI believe that when you complete all five qualifying matches, the win by disconnect will then show up as a sixth match.
DeleteAh, makes sense, thanks
ReplyDeleteJust came here to say I really appreciate the work you are doing, and congratulations to all the top 50 achievers you guys are crazy good. My win of the season was finishing within the top 25% and getting the master title with competitive rankings, and a 50% winrate. I am happy with that for only my second season, and seemed to drop off a bit with either luck or skill at some points.I will definitely be taking it a bit easier for winter as some of the games were quite stressful!!! Thoroughly enjoy this app and the community around it. Happy pegging
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments and support of the game!
DeleteThanks for the new card face options. Thought I'd like the extra large option but ironically it was the worst for me to distinguish cards in my hand. Some of the cards seem too similar such as an Ace and a 4. Even the suits took longer differentiate. The 4-color option was the best, hard to screw up missing a flush in my hand.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you are enjoying the new options. We went with the traditional font for the extra large cards, but I completely understand your point. We may tweak them in the future.
DeleteYeah, surprised how much I like the 4 color option, really makes a difference.
DeleteQuick question regarding the new release notes. How do we know which board is the new Tournament Board? Are there names associated with them?
ReplyDeleteHi, sounds like you have the Beta version. We don't give/show names for the boards today, but hopefully if you go to the game settings and select the board option it is easy to see which one it is (second from the top).
DeleteThanks, first time playing on a pro board. However I think it's broken, I've played 2 matches and only won 1. I'll keep testing it but if I lose again I'll go back to another board until it's patched.
DeleteDefinitely don't think the game board display is impacting the game to make you lose directly, but I can't tell if that was just a joke. If you are finding it distracting or not as helpful for what you are used to, then I get that.
DeleteSorry, yes, I was kidding. 😁 I do think the board is interesting. Will keep using it and see how I like it.
DeleteIs it possible to increase the size of playing cards (as an option) or is this limited by the UI?
ReplyDeleteIt is somewhat limited by the ratio of the height to width of a standard playing card and the size of the available screen space without causing so much overlap that selecting a card leads to selecting the wrong one too often. So, it has to balance. Some extra space can be had by removing the game board, which is an option if you want. Otherwise the horizontal space doesn't change much unless you rotate to landscape, but then the vertical space is quite limited on most mobile devices. In short, because we keep all the cards the same size, there isn't a lot of room to make them much larger. If it's the readability you want to improve, consider the extra large card face option.
DeleteDon't understand why some players feel the need to quit a game by timing out so their opponent has to wait to win the game. I just played gotupegged, I'm 3 points from winning the match with a 30 point lead and first count. Once he sees my hand from pegging he holds his last card until the game eventually times him out and forces a resignation. Is it worth having your opponent sit there for 30 extra seconds just because you're going to lose a match?
ReplyDeleteSometimes it is coincidence, I'm sure, but also sometimes people just aren't as nice to others online as in real life. I honestly don't get it either. They are definitely penalized for it.
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ReplyDeleteLate in the current season, the top players seem to be the usual suspects. I think it would be exciting to increase the chances of the top players matching each other. This might be accomplished by tightening the matching criteria, limiting matching for the top 10 or 20 to only other top players. Time windows could be set to encourage top players to be online at the same time for battle. Other ideas are welcome!
ReplyDeleteOne of our other ideas has been to consider a top finals tournament. All interesting ideas to consider.
DeleteI believe top players seek each other out already each season. I haven't played in a while, but the top players know who else is in the top 50 and especially top 20 and 10 late in the season. They look for when those players log in and try to match up, which your system will do at a high percentage rate.
DeleteThe old app used to filter out those who have received cash...previous top 50 players for the most part. That was an easy way to keep tabs on the top players. My humble idea would be to add something like that so players can easily spot others and decide to play or not. Another thing players do is to friend request others. That filters it easily too.
Overall, I like the current system you have since we all have busy lives and it allows one to play a bit more competitively without locking in a time constraint. Nice job.
One method that can be used to identify top 50 players is to find them online and hide them. Then you can scroll to the bottom to find them easily. Hiding them doesn’t affect how you match with them. With the new timing system for matching, however, it’s not as easy for top players to match with other top players. This is evidenced by higher winning percentages at the top. The system seems to be working, however, with 3 former winners and other high finishers in the top 10 again this season.
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