Cribbage Strategy Discard Quiz - Pone Edition

It’s early August, and that means it's time for a Cribbage Pro discard quiz! We've listed some common hands below. See if you can figure which discard gives the best results for pone. Note that in all cases you're playing as pone, so you'll be discarding into your opponent's crib.

We chose the hands below because they show up fairly often, and are frequently played in a suboptimal way. Before you take the quiz, you might want to review the Cribbage Pro discard table. In particular, note that you can minimize your opponent's crib by giving her K-10, Q-9, or K-9; and you'll maximize the points in your opponent’s crib by discarding 5-5, 7-8, or 2-3.

We rate each discard by its net effect on pone's points:

points pegged by pone

+ points in pone's hand

- points in dealer's crib

- points pegged by dealer

We don't take into account points scored in dealer's hand since pone's discard doesn't affect those points.

2♠ 3♥ 9♦ 10♣ J♠ Q♥

Should you keep the run and give dealer your 2-3? Or should you break up the run in order to poison your opponent's crib? We've seen the best results for the players who split up the run and give their opponent the Q-9. Only 44% of players get this one right, though. Keeping 2-3-10-J leaves you you two fifteens, good pegging (lead the 3), and on average gives dealer a terrible crib.

Here's a breakdown of the average points scored for each of the two discards. Keeping 2-3-10-J gives pone slightly more points, but the real advantage is that discarding 9-Q lowers dealer's average crib by more than three points (compared to the 2-3 discard).

Discard	9♦ Q♥	2♠ 3♥
Pone points pegged	1.78	1.63
Pone points in hand	7.04	6.76
Dealer points pegged	3.06	3.78
Dealer points in crib	4.05	7.39

A♠ 2♥ 3♦ 4♣ 7♦ 8♥

Would you toss A-7? If so you're an elite discarder: only 37% of players get this right. A lot of players toss the 7-8 into their opponents crib in order to keep their run of four. Don't do that: the 2-3-4-8 gives you a 15 for two, and lessens your opponent's crib by 3.3 points!

Discard	A♠ 7♦	7♦ 8♥
Pone points pegged	2.34	2.98
Pone points in hand	8.32	8.21
Dealer points pegged	2.90	3.41
Dealer points in crib	4.42	7.79

7♠ 8♥ 9♦ 10♣ J♠ K♥

What's the right move here? Go for the run of four (7-8-9-10) and toss your opponent J-K? Or break up your run and put 10-K in your opponent's crib? Very few players get this right, but the correct answer is: toss the 10-K. On average dealer ends up with 1.7 fewer points in his crib, which makes 10-K the right discard.

Discard	10♣ K♥	J♠ K♥
Pone points pegged	2.34	2.98
Pone points in hand	8.32	8.21
Dealer points pegged	2.90	3.41
Dealer points in crib	4.42	7.79

2♠ 4♥ 5♦ 8♣ 9♠ J♥

Everyone's got a different way to play this one. Discarding 2-4, 2-8, 4-9, and 8-J and are all popular discards. The most popular choice is to discard the 2-4, but the best discard is 4-9. Compared to 2-4, the 4-9 discard limits dealers pegging and stifles her crib.

Discard	4♥ 9♠	2♠ 4♥
Pone points pegged	1.81	2.08
Pone points in hand	6.31	4.76
Dealer points pegged	3.26	4.11
Dealer points in crib	4.31	5.00

A♥ 2♠ 4♠ 5♣ 6♠ 10♥

Most players toss A-2, but they can do better than that. The 2-10 discard gives dealer fewer points on average, and keeping the A-4 combination gives you an extra 1.6 points of pegging on average. This holds for any card that counts 10: pone should discard 2-J from A-2-4-5-6-J, 2-Q from A-2-4-5-6-Q, and 2-K from A-2-4-5-6-K.

Discard	2♠ 10♥	A♥ 2♠
Pone points pegged	3.07	1.72
Pone points in hand	8.86	9.75
Dealer points pegged	3.49	3.77
Dealer points in crib	4.31	4.77

2♥ 3♠ 5♠ 6♣ 9♠ J♥

It seems counterintuitive to give your opponent a 6-9, but that's the right play here. A lot of players toss the 2-3 in this situation, but our discard data shows that 2-3 is a more dangerous discard than 6-9.

A♠ 2♥ 3♠ 4♣ 6♠ 9♦

A lot of players are throwing 6-9, but they'd gain a few points if they kept 2-3-4-6 and discarded A-9.

A♣ 2♥ 4♠ 8♣ 10♦ K♠

Once again, 10-K is the right discard. Your hand will score fewer points, but you'll peg more and your opponent's crib will have fewer points. A-2-4-8 pegs well, so when you're dealt A-2-4-7-8-K you should keep the A-2-4-8 and throw 7-K into opponent's crib.

A♥ 3♥ 4♣ 7♦ 10♠ K♠

You've guessed it: 10-K is the way to go. Keeping the A-3-4-7 is good for pegging (if you lead the 4), and the 10-K discard shuts down dealer's crib.

3♠ 4♦ 6♣ 7♣ 9♠ J♥

The wrong (but most common) discard is 7-J. You'll score better if you discard 3-J: better pegging and a lower scoring crib for the dealer.

2♠ 3♥ 4♠ 8♣ 9♠ 10♦

Oh, here's a good one. The right move? Toss the 8-10. A lot of players toss the 8-9 here, but that sets dealer up for a nice crib. Some players toss 2-3, but that leaves them with too few points in their hand. 2-3-4-9 strikes the right balance of a poor crib for dealer, with a good hand and good pegging for pone.

A♥ 2♠ 3♥ 5♦ 5♣ 9♠

Tossing the 2-3 is pretty scary, but it leaves you with six points. Tossing the A-9 gives dealer fewer points in her crib, but leaves you with only four points in your hand. Hmm.. What's the right choice? Toss the A-9. Discarding 2-3 almost guarantees your opponent a great crib. Keeping the 2-3 increases your pegging potential, especially if you lead the 3. So on balance A-9 is the right discard here.

2♠ 3♥ 7♦ 8♣ 9♠ 10♥

Don't toss that 2-3!!! Toss 10-3 or 10-2 instead. You'll score fewer points in your hand, but you'll more than make up for that by shutting down dealer's crib.

How can we help you?

Do you frequently run into a hand that flusters you? Leave us a comment below and we'll tell you what our data suggests.

Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Aaron Harsh continuing the series on cribbage strategy and tips. Aaron lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Stacy and daughter Audrey. He spends his evenings analyzing cribbage strategy for Fuller Systems, and his days analyzing television viewership for Rentrak Corporation's Advanced Media & Information group. You can play him on Cribbage Pro Online as user "aaronhars", or in person at American Cribbage Congress grassroots club #28 (Oregon's Finest).

Cribbage Strategy - Timing Your Opponent

Up until now this blog has focused on how to play your cards, but there’s another important part of cribbage strategy: playing your opponent. Let’s see what you can tell about your opponent’s hand from the amount of time it takes them to play.

How good is your opponent’s hand?

Did your opponent discard quickly, or did they take several seconds to choose their discard? That timing turns out to be a great indicator of the strength of their hand. When your opponent discards in just a second or two she (on average) has a stronger hand than she does when she takes 15 seconds or more:

Our data shows that when dealers take only a second or two to discard they've scored around 16.5 points during the hand (between pegging, counting her hand, and counting her crib). When dealers have taken more than 15 seconds to decide they've scored, on average, around 15.2 points

Dealers that take a long time are also much less likely to end up with a big game-changing hand. We've seen that dealers scored 20 or more points in 27% of the hands where they've made their decision in 2 seconds or less, but only in 20% of the hands where it took them more than 15 seconds to decide.

The difference is even more dramatic for pone. We've seen that pone averaged 11.4 points (between pegging and counting her hand) on the hands when her discard decision was made in one or two seconds, but only 9.5 points when pone took longer than 15 seconds. And pone scores 20 or more points in 5% of the hands that were decided in one or two seconds, but only 2% of hands that took longer than 15 seconds.

You can use this information when deciding whether to play offense or defense. Instead of using our dealer/pone averages of 16 and 10, you can estimate your opponent’s end-of-hand position based on the the above table and her discard time.

“Should you pair your opponent’s lead” revisited

When pone discards quickly she’s more likely to keep a pair, and therefore more likely to lead from a pair. Be extra cautious about pairing your opponent’s lead when she discarded quickly. In an earlier blog post we suggested that you should only pair a great player’s lead if she leads with a 3, 4, or 8. Our data shows that pairing pone’s lead is even more dangerous when she discarded quickly -- in that case the 4 is the only lead card you can pair without giving up more points than you gain on average.

The chart and table below have the details. They show the probability that pone is setting you up for a trap with her lead card (that is, that pone would score three of a kind for 6 points if you paired her lead card), broken down by the amount of time it took pone to discard, and pone’s lead card. (Note that the numbers aren't the same as in our earlier blog post. Since then we've added a few million additional hands of data to our sample, and the statistics have shifted a little).

Probability pone’s lead is a trap (when lead is different rank than cut)

Lead card	Overall	If pone discarded slowly	If pone discarded quickly
A	49.68%	45.54%	54.52%
2	39.46%	36.80%	48.51%
3	27.30%	25.02%	37.19%
4	23.79%	20.74%	34.15%
5	43.42%	40.92%	54.55%
6	36.22%	29.67%	51.92%
7	31.95%	27.58%	46.16%
8	28.54%	24.73%	36.11%
9	34.58%	27.73%	58.45%
10	35.18%	28.29%	51.65%
J	35.84%	28.59%	50.82%
Q	32.42%	27.79%	41.86%
K	32.44%	28.38%	37.25%

Next topic: a question from Craig

Cribbage Pro player Craig sent an email asking what pairs were most likely to show up in pone’s hand, and what were most likely to show up in dealer’s hand. The results are interesting: pone is more likely to keep a pair in her hand, and significantly more likely to keep a pair of cards 5 or higher. About 6% of pone hands include a pair of fives, vs. only 5.2% of dealer hands.

Also interesting is that fact that most hands include a pair. In fact, around 60% of pone hands include at least one pair.

Here are the gory details for the mathematically inclined:

Pair	% Dealer Hands	% Pone Hands
A	4.2%	4.3%
2	4.3%	4.4%
3	4.6%	4.9%
4	4.9%	5.1%
5	5.2%	6.0%
6	4.8%	5.2%
7	4.4%	5.1%
8	4.3%	4.9%
9	4.5%	4.9%
10	4.6%	5.0%
J	4.6%	5.0%
Q	4.3%	4.6%
K	4.0%	4.4%

More questions?

We love answering these types of questions. Do you have another one for us? Just leave a comment and we’ll see about answering it.

Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Aaron Harsh continuing the series on cribbage strategy and tips. Aaron lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Stacy and daughter Audrey. He spends his evenings analyzing cribbage strategy for Fuller Systems, and his days analyzing television viewership for Rentrak Corporation's Advanced Media & Information group. You can play him on Cribbage Pro Online as user "aaronhars", or in person at American Cribbage Congress grassroots club #28 (Oregon's Finest).