Competitive Cribbage - Spring 2022 Season

It is the time you have all been anxiously waiting for, a new competitive season of Cribbage! Welcome to the Spring 2022 Season of Competitive Matchmaking for Cribbage Pro! Where we are, it is definitely that time of year again, and spring has sprung. I know for many there are a few more weeks of winter weather, but here the flowers are blooming, the bees are buzzing and I am sneezing - it is springtime! The Winter 2022 season has completed, and if you had any bets placed on who was going to be at the top, there were not a lot of surprises this time around. Overall, the Top 50 leaderboard still had some new faces, and the season had more matches played than any of the previous 3 seasons! It was a fairly hard and long battle for many to reach their rankings. As always, continue to tell your friends about competitive cribbage, and take advantage of those prizes! Thank you to all who were once again able to participate in this great game of cribbage! For those who couldn't make the commitment to Winter 2022, I hope you can find the time to join in the fun this season.

In 1st place for Winter 2022, we have "iPeg". Welcome back, iPeg! 2nd place is "Dhrun", and I admit I was kind of rooting for Dhrun this season. In 3rd we have "nob4one", which is someone we have seen around these parts before too, and great to see come up from 13th last season. Other interesting movements in the Top 50 included "hillchem" moving from 15th to 7th, and "Yompopo" who came all the way from 41st to 12th! The next biggest moves between seasons were "Br1Guy" who rose 24 places from 37th to 13th, and "RatKing" from 32nd to 14th!

As with past seasons, everyone who finished the season in the Top 50 ("Recent" list), have been awarded both a special in-game "board peg" as well as Cribbage Pro Gold that can be used in the Cribbage Pro Contests system and then redeemed for cash (awards must be used at least once in a Contest to be cashed out to USDC, see the full terms and conditions for details). 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. The Cribbage Pro Gold awards are as follows (not cumulative):

• 4 Gold for Top 50
• 7 Gold for Top 25
• 10 Gold for Top 10
• 20 Gold for 3rd Place
• 30 Gold for 2nd Place
• 50 Gold for 1st Place

Remember to complete your 10 matches per week. See the FAQ for details. Play early, and play often!

Here was the final Top 50 for Winter 2022:

1	iPeg	26	IAMFAST
2	Dhrun	27	jjpears20
3	nob4one	28	scoot1234
4	flashmatt	29	Looie3nba
5	yank29	30	gmric5
6	Mrpadre	31	Freddie69
7	hillchem	32	SergeLam
8	ryguy2021	33	ernie313
9	TC2	34	SH00TER
10	Domerzag	35	Podracer
11	lbolt58	36	fab50
12	Yompopo	37	yvanobc12
13	Br1Guy	38	kb92129
14	RatKing	39	konadive
15	pileated	40	dixietix
16	enaud58	41	dcpastore
17	31four14	42	jjonell
18	pscohen	43	gsosin
19	VGKnights	44	Barusu1
20	nvsru911	45	mountains
21	rattle15	46	Wyorwk
22	EVW	47	tassie08
23	pegmstr77	48	catpat
24	dkatz1877	49	Trucha1
25	greyday	50	Paludeja

The levels in Competitive Matchmaking are available in the FAQ.

Some Changes This New Spring 2022 Season

Although we had hoped to add several changes this season, we were unable to do so because of competing priorities leaving not enough time to get everything tested and ready to go. So this new season is keeping changes to just a little widening of the difference in CR allowed to make a match in the matchmaking system. Last season had it around 1000 CR, but we tweaked it up a bit to allow for some broader competition. This was needed due to how quickly the lower CR players were bumped out of being able to play (find a match) so early on in the season. We want to be able to welcome players into the season for a longer period of time, and not have people lose all hope early on as the time require to find a match grows beyond the time they have available to play. Again, more changes in the future, but for now that is the noteworthy change for this season aside from some bug fixes, etc.

As a reminder, if you have played a few seasons here and have some thoughts on what you would like to see around prizes, structure or anything else, please email us at support@FullerSystems.com with your suggestions.

Competitive Cribbage - Winter 2022 Season

Welcome to the Winter 2022 Season of Competitive Matchmaking for Cribbage Pro! Yes, it is still 2021 when we start this season, but I think we have had enough of 2021. The Autumn 2021 season has ended, and in a way that I honestly did not expect. So many new faces on the Top 50 leaderboard this last season, several of which came in at the "last minute" to make their way into the top rankings, and of course a new 1st place player as well! Please continue to tell your friends about competitive cribbage, and of course the chance to win the prizes! Thank you to all who were once again able to participate in this great game of cribbage!

As many will attest, it takes some significant commitment to achieve this, and so I want to very sincerely recognize that hard work here. I'm humbled by the individual effort put in by so many. That said, I also hear that it would be nice to lower that level of work a bit to allow more people a chance to participate. This season we are making some smaller changes, but won't be making the bigger changes until next season when I do plan to include more of your suggestions. Before I get into the more minor changes this season later in this post, let me take a moment to recognize the top players last season.

In 1st place, we have "ThreeG". Great job on achieving this rank and beating out some great competition! 2nd place is "iPeg", and I am sure you are all deeply saddened to see them fall from 1st place, after sitting there multiple seasons. In 3rd we have "Dhrun", which again I know took a lot of work to get there! There were several big improvements again this season, but we really saw a lot of new players in the Top 50, so congratulations to you all as well.

As with past seasons, everyone who finished the season in the Top 50 ("Recent" list), have been awarded both a special in-game "board peg" as well as Cribbage Pro Gold that can be used in the Cribbage Pro Contests system and then redeemed for cash (awards must be used at least once in a Contest to be cashed out to USDC, see the full terms and conditions for details). 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. The Cribbage Pro Gold awards are as follows (not cumulative):

• 4 Gold for Top 50
• 7 Gold for Top 25
• 10 Gold for Top 10
• 20 Gold for 3rd Place
• 30 Gold for 2nd Place
• 50 Gold for 1st Place

Remember to complete your 10 matches per week. See the FAQ for details. Play early, and play often!

Here was the final Top 50 for Autumn 2021:

1	ThreeG	26	4MrHand
2	iPeg	27	glaicer29
3	Dhrun	28	jkruger
4	card55	29	ernie313
5	flashmatt	30	gstorm77
6	kcguy	31	Paxter
7	Saskie	32	RatKing
8	lbolt58	33	VGKnights
9	WhyADuck	34	dkatz1877
10	XLNC21	35	Linkup
11	UberPooch	36	0wl
12	Domerzag	37	Br1Guy
13	nob4one	38	cribberoo
14	jwick60	39	jwr13
15	hillchem	40	dph
16	xdb1135	41	Yompopo
17	rattle15	42	DdsG
18	nvsru911	43	shudbgolf
19	chiyo1	44	stephzzz
20	beth0223	45	gmax
21	Cmoney421	46	airmark7
22	jjonell	47	Trucha1
23	mountains	48	Rhuby
24	better69	49	Birddoggy
25	Swodis	50	lovJesus

The levels in Competitive Matchmaking are available in the FAQ.

Important Changes This Season

Now to briefly go over some important changes this new season. First, we have changed the rule about how late you can come into the season and start playing. You now must have completed your placement matches 3 weeks prior to the end of the season. This should give enough time to let the ranking settle out the top players without the potential for a few lucky matches to drive rankings sideways at the end of a season.

Second, multiple pieces of the matchmaking system have changed. The biggest change is that we now will enforce a maximum CR difference between players once you get to the Diamond level. That means you shouldn't see someone who is 1000 CR lower/higher than you being matched at that point (and it is fairly unlikely at the lower levels too). The second change is a bit more complex to describe, but put simply it tweaks how the system determines if it thinks the matchup will produce a "good game" and let it through as a positive potential match. I think both of these changes will allow some more movement in the leaderboard in a good way, while also reducing that "risk" of waiting too long and being matched against someone too much lower than you. One of the real life "daily" impacts is that you may wait a little longer for a match, but also that you should not exit out of the matchmaking while waiting like before if you were trying to avoid that lower CR match. It will be fun to see how this all plays out, and note that we may make some tweaks throughout the season if it looks like it any of this isn't achieving the desired outcomes.

One last minor change is a tweak to how wait times are calculated. It is definitely far from perfect, but just remember it is based on what players of your similar level are seeing as wait times on average recently. As such, it will lose accuracy during slower times when fewer players are playing. I am honestly debating if this feature is very helpful, and so please let me know your feedback if you would rather that space on the screen be used for something else or just gone.

Finally, know that we are looking into some potentially bigger changes for the next season. If you have played a few seasons here and have some thoughts on what you would like to see done, please email us at support@FullerSystems.com with your suggestions. Similarly, if you have never played and something is holding you back, let us know. It is primarily what you all suggest that drives what I work on next, so let your voice be heard.