App Profile: Cribbage Classic

ShaggyDjdzvhgsb

Rating: 5/5

This is an excellent cribbage game, especially since it’s free. Some reviewers claim that the game is tilted in favor of the computer, but I don’t think so. On pro level sometimes the computer gets more great hands, and sometimes I do. I’ve been skunked and I’ve skunked the Pro. Once I even double-skunked the Pro. On the Easy and Standard levels I feel like the game gives you a combination of you getting better cards, and the computer getting worse cards, in order to give you an advantage. I like the option of manually counting which is a great teaching tool. The game is great. The only things I would like to see, and this is totally personal, is an option in settings to have the computer count double-runs as double-runs, rather than as pairs plus individual runs as it does now. For example, if you have a double-run of eight, instead of counting “pair for two, run of three for five, run of three for eight,” just lift all the cards and say “double-run of eight.” The way it counts now is correct, and a great teaching tool as it breaks down the double-run into its components for the novice, but ultimately that’s not the vocabulary of the game. The other thing that would be fun to see is when a hand is worth 0 points, the computer should call it “19” points instead of 0. Both of those are super minor, but they would complete, as close as possible, the digital cribbage experience to real life.

DRB-inthevalley

Rating: 5/5

Almost 35 years ago, I wrote a cribbage game for the Mac called Precision Cribbage. That game allowed you to see the expected value of a hand by picking two planned discards. This modern game takes that concept much further by allowing you to see all possible expected hand values for all discard pairs. For a beginner, looking at the suggested discards - and understanding why those discards are picked - seems like a great way to improve. I have two suggestions: 1) I outpeg the game about 70% of the time at the pro level. And in the course of 80 games, have about a 58% win percentage at Pro. I think the differential is due to pegging. It is fairly easy to bait the game into giving me opportunities for runs. This seems like an opportunity for strategy improvement. 2) As you near the end of the game, expected value is not necessarily the best play. For example, I just finished a game where I needed six points to win. I had six in my hand, but would have to break up a pair to do that (while keeping another pair). The game recommended keeping the two pairs as the highest expected value, but I would actually lower the probability of winning from 100% to something less. I understand this game theory approach is challenging, but it would be an interesting further area for this game to explore. Thanks for this great game!

ToolGuy

Rating: 5/5

I’m just learning Cribbage, and this is a great teaching tool. When you overlook something, the “hints” encourage you to actually think about the cards you play instead of just giving you the answer. The same is true for the discards into the Crib. The analyzer shows the probable/possible scores for different combinations of discards without explicitly showing the details — which makes you think about the different possible scoring combinations that might occur depending on the turned card. All of which has really helped me better understand how to make the best use of the cards I am dealt. Also, the visual highlighting of the cards used to make different scoring combinations is great. It moves pretty quickly, which helps you get faster at recognizing different scoring combos (and doesn’t slow down the game), but you can easily repeat it while you are still learning. All in all, a great game at a great price — FREE with small, unobtrusive ads at the bottom of the screen. IMHO, much better than the other “in app purchase” games I also looked at. They tend to add pointless character animations and other useless fluff which add nothing to the game and more often detracts from it.