George "Ras" Rasmussen - Tip #2

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At a recent cribbage tournament, I was privileged to participate in a discussion with two other players regarding the merits of the K-6 and Q-9 discard option to the opponent. One player liked the K-6, the other favored the Q-9. I should admit that my slight bias is for the K-6.

On returning home, I dug into the discarding records and discovered some interesting comparative data. Please note that I have recorded more than 1,000 discards on each of these options. The K-6 at this point has a slightly lower overall average at 4.150 followed by the Q-9 at 4.175. It should be recalled that only the K-10 and a K-9 offer discard choices which average less than 4.0.

When viewing these discards selections in broadly defined terms, they look much the same.

When looking at these two discard options with greater focus. there are some distinct differences.

K-6

* includes three 14 cribs

Q-9

**No cribs over 12 points

The Q-9 does very well on the ends of this scale. A zero crib is 65% more likely with the Q-9 while the K-6 is 175% more likely to tally 12-15 points. In addition, the Q-9 average is continuing to decline at a more rapid rate than the K-6. It appears that an additional 1,000 samples of the Q-9 will result in an average of approximately 4.087 with the K-6 following at 4.115. These averages have not stabilized at present levels.

You can be sure that either discard selection is a very good one. It appears that I need to favor the Q-9. That's hard for me to do since the last three times I discarded a Q-9, the cribs were ten, ten and eleven.

- Republished by permission. Text copyright © 2002 by George Rasmussen. All rights reserved.

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