Competitive Cribbage - Summer 2025

Summer is once again heating up, and so is the competition! The Summer 2025 Season of the Cribbage Pro Competitive Matchmaking tournament has officially begun. It’s your chance to sharpen your skills, rise through the ranks, and prove yourself against the best in the game. Whether you're defending your title or aiming for your breakout moment, the board is set - let the games begin!

During the Spring 2025 season, we noticed some unexpected behavior in how the ranking system was performing. Although initial checks didn’t reveal any clear issues, we kept a close eye on things as the season unfolded. Thanks to continued monitoring and feedback from the community, we eventually pinpointed the root cause and got to work on a solution. It wasn’t easy. Some parts were challenging and, honestly, a bit frustrating. After weeks of focused effort, we’re confident that the improvements now in place for the Summer 2025 season will make competitive play better than ever. At the end of this post, I’ll go into more detail about the recent ranking system changes, along with a brief tribute to a valued member of the cribbage community we sadly lost. I hope you’ll take a moment to read both. But first, as is tradition, let’s take a quick look back at the results from Spring 2025.

Spring 2025

Despite the unexpected challenges, the Spring 2025 season saw an impressive turnout, with a remarkable number of players and games played. We saw higher player counts than several past seasons, and the highest ever for total games played in a season. The core format will remain the same for Summer 2025, aside from the important improvements discussed below. With that work now behind us, we’re turning our focus toward developing some exciting new features for the future. This competitive matchmaking system continues to grow as the largest cribbage tournament anywhere - and that’s entirely thanks to you. We’re truly grateful for your continued support and participation!

For the final Spring 2025 results, "cutajack" secured 1st place, improving on a previous best of 9th. In 2nd,through 4th places we had a tight race this season. There was meaningful movement there even up to the final few days. In the end, 2nd place went to "DAiello" (a past 1st place finisher), with another regular top player "nob4one" (past 2nd place finisher) rounded out the top three, just edging out "seachica" in the final hours of the season. Several others in the Top 50 will definitely look familiar, while several are new. Congratulations to all on their performance this season!

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 Spring 2025:

1	cutajack		26	JayinSD13
2	DAiello		27	Djensen55
3	nob4one		28	Neary74
4	seachica		29	ernie313
5	Dhrun		30	card55
6	Meow80		31	icemfmike
7	smingle		32	wfdove
8	WhyADuck		33	tsiege05
9	Crackula		34	Mrpadre
10	Domerzag		35	caramba
11	vegasbrad		36	smjmhhh
12	limo1		37	dogfred
13	FrosBros		38	yank29
14	bigd1982		39	dkatz1877
15	Cmoney421		40	scoman10
16	Duane1952		41	goferbro5
17	Caganer		42	Alaska47
18	AJackOLit		43	Msmarz
19	lbolt58		44	mm1515
20	jimmer53		45	lostdutch
21	Slambovia		46	fpster
22	808HWK		47	superdow
23	4KA		48	LanceIot
24	Peggrhed		49	dph
25	cribhead2		50	ButcherMn

The levels in Competitive Matchmaking are available in the FAQ.

Of Math & Mysteries in Spring 2025

As mentioned earlier, the Spring 2025 season brought some unexpected behavior in how the ranking system calculations performed in various situations - despite no changes to the actual game code. That made things especially puzzling. After digging deeper, we traced the root cause to low-level server system updates made prior to when the season began. These updates subtly changed how certain complex mathematical operations were being handled under the hood.

The differences were incredibly small - sometimes at the 0.0001 level - but those tiny discrepancies added up. The most noticeable impact was on how the system calculated the confidence (or more technically, uncertainty) factor in player ratings. In short, the system was becoming too confident too quickly about where players ranked. That might sound like a good thing, being confident, but in a game like cribbage where luck can play a meaningful role, we want the system to take more time and consider more data before locking in on a player’s skill level. Otherwise, ranking movement slows down too quickly, and wins or losses have less impact than they should.

So what did we do about it? We ran extensive simulations using past season data, testing a wide range of fixes. We tried everything from minor tuning tweaks to full rewrites of the core math and other related sections of the system. We studied other ranking models, poured through more math papers than we ever wanted to, and ultimately made the decision to switch to a new (but closely related) ranking system. It’s still in the family of Glicko-2 style models, but it uses an improved framework for how calculations are performed that should provide more stable results from season to season with less dependency on the underlying server nuances that the old system had which caused this issue.

Our testing shows that this new system closely matches the historical performance we’re aiming for, while also improving consistency and responsiveness in how ratings adjust. Final rankings aren't expected to be impacted, as the model is so very similar to how things worked in the past, but you may notice smoother (and more accurate) CR changes, especially toward the end of the season.

We’re confident this upgrade will make the competitive experience better than ever. Still, if anything feels off or looks wrong, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Remembering "lofty1234"

If you’ve ever glanced at the Cribbage Pro Leaderboard for single-player games, chances are the name "lofty1234" stood out for both being the top player and also for the total number of games played. Richard - known to all his friends as “lofty” - has held that top spot for a long time, and likely will remain a fixture in the "All Time" rankings for years to come. It’s with great sadness that I share the news, recently shared with me by his family, that Richard passed away on May 10th, 2025, after a short illness. He is survived by his wife, daughter, and two young grandchildren.

Richard wasn’t just a top player - he was a true cribbage enthusiast. His dedication to the game was unmatched, logging an extraordinary number of games that often led others to wonder if he might be a bot. But as I’ve confirmed publicly before (and have personally verified multiple times), Richard’s games were entirely real - driven by passion, not automation.

What follows is a portion of his story that was shared with me by his family. I’ve lightly edited their words for clarity and format, but it is overall unchanged. It's a beautiful reminder of the joy cribbage can bring, and a tribute to one of its most devoted players. Richard’s legacy lives on in the community he helped inspire.

Richard played cribbage for as long as anyone can remember, first "IRL" (In Real Life) in local leagues for a pub in his hometown. He also used to enter the UK National Championship with his friends in the 90s and early 2000s, including being Team Pairs Runner Up in the 1995-6 competition (trophy pictured below). It was a good excuse for the group to get a weekend away together each year and have a few drinks. More recently, following his retirement, he played online. He tried a few apps, but really took to Cribbage Pro. As you can tell from his stats, he treated it like a full time job for a number of years - at first to overtake jclark44 (now 5th), but once at the top of the board to our surprise he just kept playing and extending his lead. 

Despite the speculation, he was not house/bed-bound; as your team correctly responded on a Reddit thread, he was “just someone who plays fast, and plays a lot, and has for many years”.

He also enjoyed playing Dominoes (and was UK National 3-a-side champion in 1995), watching Chelsea FC & England play football, and his daily trip to the pub with his mates.

His avatar picture in Cribbage Pro (shown above) is a picture of his dog, Poppy, who was also with him when he passed. Below is a picture of Richard enjoying his favourite pastime, having a beer in the sunshine.