It's time to cozy up with some more competitive cribbage! The Winter 2025 Season of the Cribbage Pro competitive matchmaking tournament is here – giving you the perfect excuse to stay in, play, and outpeg the competition while the frost settles in outside. Jump in to test your skills, sharpen your strategy, and experience the thrill of top-tier cribbage – all from the warmth of home!
Before diving into the exciting news about what's new for Winter 2025, let's take a brief moment to summarize the finish to the Autumn 2024 season.
Autumn 2024
The autumn season had a lot of new faces bringing their top game, and it is always fun to see new names on the list. There was also some interesting drama in the top spots during the final days of the season. We had 4th place jump up to 2nd, bumping everyone else down while 3rd dropped to 5th within just the last 48 hours. It is a good reminder that it is hard to try and just sit comfortably with playing only a few games in the last few days of a season, as we have seen that backfire on a regular basis if you don't have a substantial lead.
For the final results, holding on to first place we have someone we have seen before at the top many seasons back now, "Mrpadre" (up 26 positions from last season), followed by "31four14" in 2nd who has been playing and competing for several seasons with a past best of 17th place (and the player who made that jump from 4th just prior to the end of the season). In 3rd we have "locust" who is also a long time player, but new to the Top 10 (placing 62nd last season, but a best of 14th several seasons back). Lastly, as a quick honorable mention, we have our last season first place finisher "DAiello" in 4th.
Special awards for the Top 50 players include in-game board pegs: the top player receives the "crown" peg, while others in the Top 50 get the "star" peg. These pegs are prominently displayed in online multiplayer games, serving as permanent badges of distinction earned through competitive play.
Reminder: Complete 10 matches per week! See the FAQ for details on the timing each week
Here was the final Top 50 for Autumn 2024:
| 1 | Mrpadre | 26 | dkatz1877 | |
| 2 | 31four14 | 27 | bastien13 | |
| 3 | locust | 28 | Hansolph | |
| 4 | DAiello | 29 | yank29 | |
| 5 | BigCrbNRG | 30 | IAMFAST | |
| 6 | Dhrun | 31 | TripJames | |
| 7 | nob4one | 32 | yvanobc12 | |
| 8 | dixietix | 33 | Checkop | |
| 9 | tbowl75 | 34 | niltes | |
| 10 | Crackula | 35 | AJackOLit | |
| 11 | lbolt58 | 36 | Kinger765 | |
| 12 | dcpastore | 37 | Domerzag | |
| 13 | jwr13 | 38 | a2zCrib | |
| 14 | Dpac | 39 | MatchMe | |
| 15 | jjonell | 40 | Meow80 | |
| 16 | wfdove | 41 | Grandude | |
| 17 | pappy9837 | 42 | Cryb2nite | |
| 18 | whersh | 43 | ernie313 | |
| 19 | UberPooch | 44 | flybill | |
| 20 | BearJoo | 45 | hawkeyewn | |
| 21 | 4KA | 46 | Alaska47 | |
| 22 | linurbug9 | 47 | KayGee | |
| 23 | vJimc | 48 | gmric5 | |
| 24 | WactownD | 49 | dph | |
| 25 | Orelvis | 50 | kpcrib123 |
Improvements for Winter 2025!
In feedback that I get from time to time, I have heard a couple of general themes that are being addressed with changes starting this season. These themes are suggestions about finding ways to keep games moving quickly, improving the turn time limits and enhancement of the player disconnect / reconnect system. Each of these have changes that I believe will help make the game experience better for everyone, and these changes are why we are requiring all participants in the competitive season to have the latest current update of the game in order to play.
First, on the disconnect / reconnect system, there have been improvements made to better track player activity, monitor device connection quality and reduce "time to reconnect". All of these things are "under the hood" changes that have been made for all multiplayer formats in Cribbage Pro, with some special consideration given to the competitive matchmaking games in particular. Of course this doesn't prevent someone from rage quitting, and the system waiting for a reconnect. That is just the nature of online games. However, it should keep accidental disconnects from happening as often, and when they do happen it should improve the recovery of the connection to continue playing. The end results should be fewer disconnects and faster reconnects for everyone, with continued improvements planned for future updates as well based on how these changes perform over time.
For the changes to turn time limits, the first thing that was done is to improve the synchronization of the timers between both players. This will help make it more clear when someone has actually exceeded the turn time limit, and help prevent any false alerts that their time was exceeded when it really had not expired on their device before they initiated the play. However, the big change here is that for competitive matchmaking games only, the turn time limit is now a split timer of 10 seconds to discard, and 6 seconds for all other plays instead of the full 10 seconds every turn. Most players were already performing within those limits, so for many this won't change much at all in your side of the game. However, there were some players where even playing that last card would take the full 10 seconds every time, and that just frustrates everyone who has experienced it and is not in the spirit of true competitive play. A 4 second difference in the timer for playing a card may not sound like much, but it all adds up. In the end, I think this will be a very positive improvement for everyone, and possibly one we can consider adding as an option in classic multiplayer games too.
Finally, to keep games moving quickly without needlessly waiting on your opponent to do the only thing they can do, and related to the previous item around timers, all competitive matchmaking games are now set to always use "Auto Go" and "Auto Deal" every game. That means it does not matter what you set in the overall game settings for those settings (single player and the casual classic multiplayer games aren't impacted by this change and continue to use those overall settings). In this competitive format, the game will now always automatically deal the cards for every hand, and always automatically send the "Go". So now there is never any waiting 10 seconds for your opponent to just give the "Go". It will all happen automatically for both players.
In the one game I've played so far it did seem to be much quicker....so that's good....
ReplyDeleteThe auto go and auto deal have have brought the pace of the game quite the other way. It is almost like playing a machine now instead of a person.
ReplyDeleteThis is a game of skill. On occasion I need more than 6 seconds to make an informed decision. 10 seconds was fine. I could increase that when necessary by taking a time out for an additional 10 on the rare occasion that I needed to. As johnmac says, its also like playing a robot now things move so fast. I am not a bad player. Finish consistently in the top 95 percent and have finished in the top 50 once (no 11). This is no longer any fun. Yes, force the go card and button, force the play of the last card but give us more time to think when it matters.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback. If you need a few more seconds from time to time, just take the warning. You get 4 each game.
DeleteI think giving four warnings is actually the core of the problem of pace of play. Four warnings for each game of a three-game tournament is way too much.
DeleteI agree that 4 warnings per game is way too much. This is competitive play, not social. 3 warnings per match is enough.
DeleteNot gonna lie! These improvements are fantastic! Much faster, and if you’ve been playing long enough, it doesn’t take much time to discard. Love the auto deal and go. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear! The positive and negative feedback really helps, and is always appreciated.
DeleteReally loving the auto update, it definitely makes for a speedier match. I also agree that four warnings per game is way too much.
ReplyDeleteI have a suggestion you might want to consider. There are some players who are real sore losers (it’s just a freaking game!), Being able to rate these players afterwards might not change much (since unfortunately we can’t block them), but would give some satisfaction to us when they pull stunts like exhausting all their warnings at the end and then disconnecting. It’s surprising how many poor sports there are, even among those who have come into the top 50 at some point. Even better yet would be even more points deducted for not playing nicely…. Something to consider. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI those cases, if you can describe the situation, identify the opponent and the time of the match, perhaps you could send an email to fuller support and they could review it and send a gentle reminder to the player that poor sportsmanship is not welcome.
DeleteRealgoodA, right after the match, go to CribbagePro home and press the ? question mark dotted with a heart on the bottom right, then press “send log” on the top right corner. A comment section will pop up and allow you to identify the opponent and situation. Hit send, if you do it right after the match, it will give Fuller a timestamp.
ReplyDeleteI lost several double skunks because of rage quits….
ReplyDeleteOK, so after playing 100 games, I still think that "speed cribbage" is not an improvement over the former format which allowed some time to think through difficult choices. Speed cribbage is not played in a face to face tournament, so why is it necessary here. Forcing play on the last card and forcing play on the go card (where player only has one possible card to play without exceeding the 31 count) would have sped up the game enough. I have played hundreds (thousands?) of games here and rarely encountered anyone who consistently used the 10 allotted seconds. At any rate, I just lost the second game of a match on account of timeouts (first game of the 100 played lost on account of time ) and noticed that the entire match was forfeited even though I had won the first game. This seems a bit of an excessive penalty....why not just forfeit the game instead of the entire match.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback. Today, a forfeit of any kind (timeout or otherwise) is an entire match forfeit.
DeleteOne option for an improvement would be an extra time button that can be used once or twice in each game for a difficult strategy decision, maybe a 30 second clock. This wouldn’t slow the match down much and would give players the time they needed in critical situations.
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