Cribbage Competitive Matchmaking - Active Times of Day

I was recently asked, and have been asked in various ways before, about what times of the day are most active in Cribbage Competitive Matchmaking. The goal here is to provide some insight into that question, and to help people find the best times to look for a match, particularly if you have a more flexible schedule and just want to know when is best to log in and play.

First, a few important notes. All times are in UTC, so you will need to convert to your local time and consider things like Daylight Saving Time if that happens in your part of the world. Second, I realize that in sharing this information it could make the busy times even busier and the less active times even harder to find a match. However, I hope that in the end this is beneficial to everyone.

Here is the current activity for Spring 2023, by hour of the day (again, in UTC).

As the chart shows, this is just so far this season, which has only been a few weeks. Still, I think it is pretty accurate. The reason for that is, this was the same season last year, as seen below for Spring 2022:

To add a little more color, here was the previous season, Winter 2023:

Some brief thoughts on this. Note that the 9th hour UTC in the winter (no DST) is 1am PST (4am EST), while the 8th hour in "spring" is still 1am in Pacific time, but that is in PDT (due to DST). You subtract 8 from UTC time to get PST, and subtract 7 to get PDT. So things don't really change much from season to season. That said, around the 14th hour through to about the 3rd hour (the next day) UTC time, there is the highest amount of activity in the matchmaking system. To do the math for you, that would be from 7am PDT (10am EDT) to 8pm PDT (11pm EDT) as the most active. The highest points are really from around 21/22 to 2, if you are looking for the height of activity.

Lastly, with respect to the day of the week, as I'm sure you are all thinking of that as your next question, things are surprisingly "flat". Saturday, Sunday and Monday see maybe just a slight increase overall for the entire season, and sometimes Wednesday does as well. So Tuesday would be the "worst" of the days, but not by a lot. I have no idea why Wednesday sees a spike from time to time, but, it does, and then often climbs a little through Thursday and Friday into the weekend. If I wanted to play when most everyone else is, I would not worry about the day of the week so much, but then try for a time around 2pm to 7pm Pacific time, 5pm to 10pm Eastern.

Again, I hope this information is helpful, and can be used to bring more people together to find the best challenging, and fun matches!

Competitive Cribbage - Spring 2023

The Spring 2023 Season of Competitive Cribbage is Live!

The very busy Winter 2023 season of competitive cribbage has now closed. All of the stats and top finishers are locked and recorded. Winter 2023 was one of the most (almost nearly the top) active seasons so far! It had more players than we have had in quite a long time, and a lot more matches played than ever before! That says a lot, considering the seasons are a little shorter now than they were when we first started. I know some of you still had times where finding a match was harder than ideal, and other times where you were matched with someone with a lower CR that you may have felt shouldn't have been matched. I understand that frustration, and I'm working on some ideas to help address that better in the future. Our journey to the best system may never reach a final destination, but it will be a work of constant improvement. The best solution to both of these for right now will be to encourage your friends to participate too. The more people who play more often, the faster matches can be found and the closer those matches will be.

Although the weather outside where I am right now isn't exactly "spring like" just yet, I hope it will be soon! I have been very busy getting app updates and features developed lately, so this Spring 2023 season keeps the format consistent with no significant changes.

Winter 2023 was an exciting season that also welcomed several new players. The Top 50 has quite a few new players. I still love seeing new players come in and make a run for it (as one definitely did this season)! Thank you to all for participating and bringing your friends! Thank you also to everyone who participated at every level, even if you didn't make the final Top 50.

In 1st place for Winter 2023, we have "iPeg" up from 5th last season, and definitely a regular top finisher. Honestly, that is pretty impressive. Someday we will need to have iPeg share all of their secrets with the world. 2nd place is someone entirely new to the Top 50, and relatively new to Cribbage Pro as well, "rookie22". I suppose the username says it all. In 3rd we have "nob4one", who we have seen around these parts before as well. Other interesting movements in the Top 50 included "dcpastore", who made a valiant run for 2nd or 3rd, but got bumped back to finish 5th. "Domerzag" moved up 27 placed to finish in 11th place, and "rattle15" finished in 12th up 24! It was super fun for me to watch the battle for positions towards the end of this season, and in particular the 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions in the last few days. I hope you all enjoyed it as well! There are, of course, many others who made some significant gains, and many familiar names on the list as well, so a hearty Congratulations to you all!!

Everyone who finished the season in the Top 50 ("Recent" list), has 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 Gold awards do expire, so use them or lose them! If you are awarded Gold, and are not sure what it is good for (or how to access the Contests system), read through the links above or email us any time if you have questions. On iOS you will need the "Cribbage Pro Contests" version of the app, and on Android and Windows you need to install the game using the Amazon Appstore. It is super easy to do, so don't let that app install process get in the way of some good cribbage fun! 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

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 Winter 2023:

1	iPeg	26	tassie08
2	rookie22	27	dkatz1877
3	nob4one	28	Dpac
4	Dhrun	29	lbolt58
5	dcpastore	30	pegmstr77
6	yvanobc12	31	SharksFin
7	balment	32	MTBiggs
8	scoot1234	33	4KA
9	WhyADuck	34	cbx1000z
10	Gssj21	35	kansas666
11	Domerzag	36	UberPooch
12	rattle15	37	Chipchamp
13	BigD4Life	38	gmric5
14	TC2	39	scottniq
15	Paludeja	40	deeney0
16	cyrusg	41	pscohen
17	Mrpadre	42	warrior14
18	yank29	43	Chelsea64
19	dph	44	reefmad
20	fbc2k23	45	rpmcd
21	gotupeggd	46	5150dog
22	Doksboy	47	monniermb
23	TrumpetJ	48	Duane1952
24	Shavesy82	49	aela
25	nvsru911	50	Mharold

The levels in Competitive Matchmaking are available in the FAQ.

New Version of Cribbage Pro Available in Beta!

Just another reminder, that the Beta is still available, and hopefully wrapping up relatively soon! If you haven't checked it out yet, you can read more about it in the blog post about the Cribbage Pro Beta.

As a reminder, if you have played 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.

New Cribbage Pro Beta Available on Mobile!

Cribbage Pro Is Getting New Features!

As you may have read in the recent Competitive Matchmaking Season blog post, we recently released a "Beta Test" version of the upcoming release of Cribbage Pro, and I have recently added some exciting new features there! Have you ever wondered what was the best discard decision among all of the possibilities, and why? Now you can know with our new hand "Grade" tool, which is also integrated into the hints system! It is even visible for your opponent's hand, and even in multiplayer games! I plan to discuss more about how that feature works in the future, but I'm also excited to announce that the beta is now available for those on iOS and iPadOS devices through the Apple TestFlight system! For Apple users, just use this link to sign up and get started with the latest version of Cribbage Pro here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/EbFA7iuB (For the "Contests" version on iOS, use this link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/3UstfEqD)For Android users, continue to simply go to the Google Play Store listing for the free version of Cribbage Pro on your Android device (if reading this on a different device, you can sign up here) and select the option to sign up for the Beta and install it directly there.

As a beta tester, you will be able to get early access to all of the new features, while also having your input guide the future of Cribbage Pro! I have received a lot of great feedback already, and it has shaped the game, and in particular the new features. I am listening, and really want your input!

You can always switch back out of the beta at any time, but if you have any suggestions at all, please take a moment and send an email to support@FullerSystems.com with your feedback about the beta. This beta version uses a new "game engine", which is kind of like an operating system for games. As such, it will look a little different around things like how it scales to fit your screen, animations/sounds, some new options/settings, prompts/input screens, and other similar non-cribbage specific things. If you have used the desktop Mac/Windows version of Cribbage Pro, then much of this will look familiar (if you have the latest updates just released - so be sure to get that update).

This is a beta test version, which means it could still have a few bugs we need to work out. If you see one, let us know right away and don't assume we already know about it!

The beta will likely continue into January (Update: February/March) 2023 before this new version will become the full released version for everyone to use. Having all of you help beta test is extremely valuable to me, so go check it out and brag to your friends about getting early access to some fun new features!!

UPDATE Feb 2023: The feedback and participation has been amazing! Thank you all so much for participating, and even more so for providing great feedback. We have decided to run the beta a few weeks longer than originally planned. This will allow more time to make more improvements, while also giving everyone a little more time to play with the game and provide more feedback. I'm so excited to get this update out to everyone, but also want to make sure it is the best it can be! Keep that feedback coming!!

Competitive Cribbage - Winter 2023

The Winter 2023 Season of Competitive Cribbage is Live!

The Autumn 2022 season has closed, and all stats and final top finishers recorded. Can you feel that chill in the air (apologies to our friends in the southern hemisphere)? I definitely can, and with it the Winter 2023 Season of Competitive Cribbage is here! This new season is just a little longer than usual at 112 days. Please also read through this post for some important news about a new upcoming version of Cribbage Pro.

Autumn 2022 was a shorter season (77 days), for mostly logistical reasons, with a few less players as well, which tends to happen this time of year as everyone is busy with so many things. In some ways it was more competitive in a tighter time frame, well at the same time a handful fewer participants is one less person to win against and makes some room for others to join the list. At the same time, I know this also meant having to wait a little longer to find a match. Please continue to spread the word about Competitive Cribbage with your cribbage playing friends. Or, better yet, help a friend learn the great game of cribbage and join us here! I humbly suggest that Cribbage Pro is a great tool to teach the game.

The Top 50 has quite a few players new in the mix. I love seeing new players come in and make a run for it! Thank you to all for participating and bringing your friends! Thank you also to everyone who participated at every level, even if you didn't make the final Top 50.

In 1st place for Autumn 2022, we have "kb92129" (from sunny San Diego perhaps??), up from 19th last season. Impressive. 2nd place is "TC2" '(3rd last season, and someone we have all seen around these parts before). In 3rd we have "Dhrun", who was in 11th last season. Other interesting movements in the Top 50 included "ernie313" who moved up 15 places to be 6th (and was several places higher earlier), "MondoMan" up 35 to 7th place, "hillchem" finishing in 11th up 36 places! A hearty Congratulations to you all!!

Everyone who finished the season in the Top 50 ("Recent" list), has 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 Gold awards do expire, so use them or lose them! If you are awarded Gold, and are not sure what it is good for (or how to access the Contests system), read through the links above or email us any time if you have questions. On iOS you will need the "Cribbage Pro Contests" version of the app, and on Android you need to install the game using the Amazon Appstore. It is super easy to do, so don't let that app install process get in the way of some good cribbage fun! 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

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 2022:

1	kb92129	26	tomato777
2	TC2	27	seachica
3	Dhrun	28	tassie08
4	nob4one	29	236Postie
5	iPeg	30	jjonell
6	ernie313	31	enaud58
7	MondoMan	32	0ffpiste
8	Mrpadre	33	TheBull82
9	scoot1234	34	Rex254
10	dkatz1877	35	wintea1
11	hillchem	36	rattle15
12	mailliw	37	duke62
13	Br1Guy	38	Domerzag
14	Paxter	39	gsosin
15	Bass2K9	40	SH00TER
16	Yompopo	41	TrumpetJ
17	Warpegs	42	Roget
18	31four14	43	lbolt58
19	brettniko	44	Swodis
20	dronergal	45	gtgplayer
21	4KA	46	808HWK
22	IAMFAST	47	pscohen
23	BigD4Life	48	boltsfan9
24	yank29	49	vhray
25	PalmerR	50	ST13

The levels in Competitive Matchmaking are available in the FAQ.

New Version of Cribbage Pro Available in Beta!

We recently released a beta test version of an upcoming release of Cribbage Pro on the Google Play Store. If you have an Android device and would like to check it out, then go to the Google Play Store listing for the free version of Cribbage Pro on your Android device (if reading this on a different device, you can sign up here) and select the option to sign up for the Beta and install it. You can always switch back out of the beta at any time. This beta version uses a new "game engine", which is kind of like an operating system for games. As such, it will look a little different around things like how it scales to fit your screen, animations/sounds, some new options/settings, prompts/input screens, and other similar non-cribbage specific things. If you have used the desktop Mac/Windows version of Cribbage Pro, then much of this will look familiar. As this is a beta test version, it means it could still have a few bugs we need to work out. If you see one, let us know right away and don't assume we already know about it.

The game itself is the same, and the way things work hasn't changed in any meaningful way. So, you may wonder why we did this if nothing major is changing. The short answer is that this new system will allow us to do much more in the future, and add more features that many have asked for, while doing it in an efficient way. Today, when I make a change of any kind to the game, I generally have to do the work 3+ times (once for each platform the game currently runs on). That takes, as you might have guessed, roughly 3x the amount of work to do just about anything. I sure would like to be able to have that time to work on making the game better, and so that is a major advantage of this change - more features, faster and more consistently. The other reasons are more technical, and involve how game engines work to make a game better in ways that if I tried to do it on my own would take huge amounts of time. The various game engines give you these things "for free" (it is included as part of that system - not to be confused with actually not costing any money). That means I can also develop new things for the game faster overall.

I hope to run this Android version of the beta for a few more weeks before possibly bringing a test version to those of you on Apple devices (the testing system with Apple is a bit more "involved"). If that is something you know you want to be involved with, then install the Apple provided "TestFlight" app from the App Store now so you are ready to go when it is available.. Following that, this new version will become the full released version for everyone to use. If you have some time, consider trying it out and giving me your feedback (good, bad, "meh" - or anything else). Having all of you help beta test is really helpful, and so your feedback in that and always is extremely valuable to me!

As a reminder, if you have played 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 - Autumn 2022 Season

The Autumn 2022 Season of Competitive Cribbage is Live!

The Summer 2022 season is in the books, and all stats are locked in and recorded. I'll keep the intro short this season, as I have some ideas to share after the important details about last season. If you are most interested in that, then scroll down past the first table on this post.

The Top 50 has quite a few players new in the mix. I love seeing new players come in and make a run for it! Thank you to all for participating and bringing your friends! Thank you also to everyone who participated at every level, even if you didn't make the final Top 50. Don't forget to invite your friends to compete and see who really is the best cribbage player!

In 1st place for Summer 2022, we have "ThreeG" (welcome back)! 2nd place is "iPeg" (so close, yet...) In 3rd we have "TC2", who was in 25th last season, but has been near the top a few times now as well (see below). Other interesting movements in the Top 50 included "dkatz1877" who moved up 45 places from last season to be 4th, "bbaer1" up 29 to 8th place, "cyrusg" up 22 to 10th and of course the many new faces who are scattered throughout the Top 50 this season who fought particularly hard in the final days of the season to make the cut! Congratulations!!

Everyone who finished the season in the Top 50 ("Recent" list), has 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 Gold awards do expire, so use them or lose them! If you are awarded Gold, and are not sure what it is good for (or how to access the Contests system), read through the links above or email us any time if you have questions. On iOS you will need the "Cribbage Pro Contests" version of the app, and on Android you need to install the game using the Amazon Appstore. 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

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 Summer 2022:

1	ThreeG	26	bigshane0
2	iPeg	27	scoot1234
3	TC2	28	seachica
4	dkatz1877	29	Paludeja
5	VGKnights	30	zackzoey
6	nob4one	31	Doksboy
7	Mrpadre	32	bj1949
8	bbaer1	33	Trucha1
9	rattle15	34	cribfan44
10	cyrusg	35	Dempegs
11	Dhrun	36	yank29
12	lbolt58	37	Chelsea64
13	mountains	38	BrutusSt
14	TempestN	39	JonKneeGo
15	2CRIBKING	40	Gssj21
16	pileated	41	jjonell
17	Yompopo	42	MondoMan
18	Mharold	43	viclen
19	kb92129	44	flashmatt
20	Lapete88	45	Domerzag
21	ernie313	46	nvsru911
22	medzy	47	hillchem
23	Geofred1	48	SH00TER
24	fpster	49	pscohen
25	sheepman	50	1bh1

The levels in Competitive Matchmaking are available in the FAQ.

Top Competitive Cribbage Stats

Recently I was asked a question related to the top players in competitive cribbage, and it got me thinking about how things have gone over the last 9 seasons (yes, it has been that long - 10 if you count the "beta test" season). This led me to wonder who has been at the very top throughout all of these 9 seasons. Here are a few tables that focus on just the top 3 of the list over all of the seasons.

Who has been in the Top 3 how many times (out of 9 total seasons)?:

Player	Count
iPeg	6
Dhrun	5
TC2	3
ThreeG	3
dkatz1877	2
BigD4Life	1
cyrusg	1
ernie313	1
kb92129	1
Mrpadre	1
nob4one	1
Nytric456	1
PegSurfer	1

Who has been in the Top 3 by final rank?:

Rank	Player	Count
1	iPeg	4
1	ThreeG	3
1	Mrpadre	1
1	Nytric456	1
2	Dhrun	2
2	iPeg	2
2	BigD4Life	1
2	cyrusg	1
2	ernie313	1
2	PegSurfer	1
2	TC2	1
3	Dhrun	3
3	dkatz1877	2
3	TC2	2
3	kb92129	1
3	nob4one	1

There are multiple ideas (as shared by a few of you), about what to do with this list. One possibility is to run a "Tournament of Champions" for everyone on the list (or maybe just some, or add everyone from the Top 5 instead of 3). There are several variations on this idea, but in order to prioritize it as something to consider, I would really like to know what everyone thinks.

Please either comment here or email and let us know what you think. Could a tournament be fun to see done in some way, even if you are not on the list? If you are on this list and are interested, send us an email confirming your interest. Lastly, assuming there is interest in a tournament of some kind, would you be interested in watching the games live as they happen (streamed live on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, etc)? If you think that would be awesome, and if you would want to participate in some other way (say, to add color commentary as I'm not sure anyone wants to hear my voice announce the games), let me know. Again, please add your thoughts in the comments or share via email. I will say that I personally find the idea of watching a live game against these players pretty interesting, but that might just be me.

As a reminder, if you have played 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.