Advanced Pegging Strategies

I'm not the greatest person to tell you about advanced pegging, as I'm not too good at it, but here are the strategies that I try to use.

• When playing the first card, you want the opponent to play the 4th card (or 6th card) for the go.  If you succeed, the opponent scores 2 during pegging, to your 0.
• When playing the second card, you want to either force your opponent to play the 3rd (or 5th) card, or you should try to keep a small valued card in your hand, for one after the go.  The idea is to peg one point each.  This goes against the advice given in the basic pegging strategy, but this advanced!

If you can do these two points above, you'll consistently score less than your opponent.

Other things to try, when pegging:

• Try to guess what the opponent has left (after the first go), and try to make them pair you, with their last card.
• Keeping a 5, hoping to force your opponent to play a 10 (face) card (for the 15), is risky, as you may end up playing the 5, on a 10 yourself.
• It's generally accepted the playing your lowest cards first, is a good idea.  I don't completely believe this, but most players seem to do this.
• If you have three cards which are close together (i.e. 7, 8, 10), play the 8 first, so you don't get caught with possible runs of three later.

There is one situation, where pegging is everything.  This is when the game is very close, with the end in sight (i.e. the score is 115-115), and it's your crib.

The opponent counts first, before your hand, and your crib, so in this situation, the points in your hand are irrelevant, as the chances are, you'll have 6 points between your hand, crib, and next hand.  So you need to help your opponent over 121 right now.

In this situation, keeping 5s and Ace cards is good, as you need to make your opponent play the last card (before reaching 31), then you play the 5... the idea is for the opponent to peg 3 (or even 4, if 31 is reached), so only 2 or 3 is needed in the opponents hand, for you  to win.  I have never seen people play this way against me, but I have won quite a few close games this way.