Opponents (pone) Crib - Advanced Strategies

Depending on the position of the game, and your playing style, you have two options:

• Concentrate on having a small-scoring hand, or
• Try to hurt the opponent crib, while taking chances with your hand.

To demonstrate these two alternatives, following is an example hand...

Ace, 2, 2, 7, 8, 9

If you need to score as few points as possible, throwing the 2 and 8 leaves you with 0 in your hand (before the cut), but the chances of a large crib for your opponent, are slim.

Alternatively, you could throw 7 and 8.  This gives you 2 points in your hand (the pair of 2's), and a good chance of scoring more after the cut (any 10 (face card) cut gives you 2 more points, for example).  The chances of a high crib for your opponent are much greater, as a 6, 7, 8, or 9 in the crib (or cut) will result in 5 points or more in the crib.

Other pointers, when throwing into the opponents crib, are:

• Touching cards are as good as pairs. (i.e. 6 & 7, is just as good as 6 & 6)
• 10 (face) cards can result in very small cribs, as the dealer is unlikely to throw 5's into their own crib.
• Throwing cards a few values apart (i.e. 2 & 6, 4 & 9) usually results in a scoring crib, but rarely a large crib.
• Throwing a pair of 5's is almost automatic, if you are dealt them.
• I like throwing an odd and an even numbered card, over 2 even or 2 odd numbered cards

Mathematically, the best tosses into the opponents crib, for the hand... Ace, 2, 2, 7, 8, 9 are...

Throwing 2, 8: The score is -2.545 (this is the value of your hand - the value of the opponents crib, so the lower numbers are better)

Throwing 7, 8: The score is -1.961

Throwing 2, 7: The score is -1.224