Category: Games

I Got Skunked in Cribbage!

It’s not common to get skunked in cribbage—but it happened to me yesterday. Sena has a way of getting very high scoring hands and this led to her winning the first of three games in a big way.

I was stuck well behind the skunk line. This led to some questions by both of us as to what exactly happens in a tournament when a player gets stuck behind the 91-hole on the peg board after the opponent reaches the winning 121 hole.

The American Cribbage Congress (ACC) website says the winner gets 2 points. I think that’s because the scoring in tournaments is done by points.

Other references say that the winner gets 2 games. That means something if you’re playing the best out of, say, 3 games and the like.

There is such a thing as a double skunk, which is getting stuck behind the 61-hole after the opponent reaches 121. Then the winning opponent wins 3 games.

Many cribbage boards will not mark where the skunk and double skunk holes are. Tournament board makers often don’t mark them—but will if you ask them to do so.

We have a so-called tournament V-tournament board which marks both skunk and double skunk lines. You can see the V-shaped track on it, which is supposed to help players avoid pegging errors.

This reminds me to mention the brand-new Sasquatch cribbage board we just ordered. It’ll be a hand-carved walnut board in a circular shape. Sasquatch will be carved in a deep 3-D relief. We are very excited about it. We hope it arrives around Christmas time. There will be no skunk lines.

By the way, I ended up winning two of three games because we typically ignore the skunk rule.

Going for the Juggler Gold Trophy!

I’ve been working on my juggling form—and it’s only somewhat improved, but I’m getting 30 throws (good for the personal Gold Trophy milestone) without dropping more consistently just since yesterday.

I’ve got about a dozen video clips with me getting at least 30 throws, one with 36 although I’m weaving, lunging, rearing, rocking and rolling all over the room, nearly crashing into the computer. You can read my lips to see I’m counting in the video.

I’m hoping that getting to my Juggling Gold Trophy milestone will help make it easier to do tricks.

My Cribbage Losing Streak and My Review of the Cribbage Classic Computer Game

Sena and I played cribbage yesterday and, of course she won. She has been on a spectacular winning streak. She got a hand score of 21. I don’t know what I’m going to have to do to come up with a win. Cheat? I could keep extra cards up my sleeves and elsewhere, but I doubt it would help much.

I downloaded the Cribbage Classic computer game, the on-line version of which I reviewed recently. The game was made by Jeff Cole and is available for free on the Microsoft Store. And it’s fun to play–although it’s always more fun to play cribbage with a real person.

I think it’s a good game for learning how to play if you’re a beginner or to relearn if you haven’t played in a while and need a refresher. I still make suboptimal tosses to the crib, which the computer reminds me about every single time. I reviewed the game using a screen recorder.

Jim and the 3 Ball Flash

Well, just a few days after picking up a kit on how to juggle, complete with 3 juggling balls, I’ve now graduated to the 3 Ball Flash, which I can more or less do consistently—or at least more times than not.

The 3 Ball Flash is to toss and catch 3 balls. You hold two balls in your right hand (or left depending on hand preference) and one ball in your left. You toss one ball in your right hand first over to your left hand. You toss the ball in your left hand over to your right after the first one hits the apex of its arch. Then you toss the second ball in your right hand and catch it in your left so you end up with two balls in your left hand. It’s one, two, three.

If you can do it without dropping balls, the teachers tell you to pat yourself on the back because it’s a big milestone.

You’ll notice in the YouTube video that I make a lot of beginner mistakes. The chief one is that I’m often doing what the author of the juggling manual calls “sprint juggling.” This means that I tend to toss way out in front of me and I end up chasing balls.

There’s this thing called the juggle space in which you’re supposed to toss the balls within a fairly tight space fairly close to your body. The idea is to imagine a sheet of glass in front of you. The bottom two corners are your two hands; the top is in a line just above your head.

When I toss the balls within the frame (which isn’t often!), it’s much easier to toss and catch the balls. What you’ll see me do in the video is the basic 3 Ball Flash, but I sneak in an extra throw or two occasionally—when I feel lucky.

Learning to Juggle!

I’m learning to juggle—sort of. I bought a kit for juggling at Barnes and Noble the other day. It came with a manual, Learning to Juggle, and 3 juggling balls. The manual is published by Sterling Innovation in New York. So far, I can sort of juggle 2 balls. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever learn how to juggle 3 balls.

It was tough to find any juggling balls in stores. Some experts on YouTube recommended starting off juggling socks or hacky sack balls. The trouble with rolled up socks is that every time I threw and caught them, they tended to change shape just from my grabbing them. They quickly got flattened.

I couldn’t find any hacky sack balls except at Scheels. They were selling single hacky sack balls for $8 a ball.

I actually got started by trying to juggle with dryer balls. They were bouncy and could smart when they hit my hand—or my head.

Juggling is a great workout when you’re just learning because you spend so much time running after dropped balls. One expert suggests juggling over a bed or couch because they don’t drop so far. That sort of works.

It’s fun and absorbing. You can learn a lot about it from YouTube videos. It takes a lot of practice, although the author of the juggling manual says some people pick it up in a half-hour.

That’s funny, just about all I pick up most of the time are the balls I drop.

Part of my motivation to learn juggling is to also build on my one leg balance skill. For the last couple of months or so since my “Balancing Act” post, I’ve been working on my ankle wobble. I can now stand on either leg for 60 seconds.

I can barely “juggle” on one leg. I have a long way to go.

Eat More Brain to Play Zombie Cribbage Game

We finally played our Zombie Cribbage game in honor of upcoming Halloween this month. We filmed it on an interesting sort of high-top table with just enough room on it for the board and playing cards.

Zombie Cribbage is played on a on a 61-hole cribbage board, replete with images of creepy bony fingers poking out from under a manhole cover and a chainsaw to battle zombies. The game naturally plays a little faster than the usual 121-hole board.

The face cards and two jokers are decorated with grisly zombies. The pegs are tiny but equally grisly.

The background Halloween images are free from Pixabay.

I was in my usual form—making miscounts and the like, yet incredibly I won the game. We didn’t try to make a video without errors. That’s impossible because my brain is pretty much bran. I did omit the part where I almost knocked over the camera tripod.

Cribbage Classic on the Web

I’ve been playing an on-line version of the cribbage game called Cribbage Classic for a short while. This is a short review. I’m far from an expert. Sena and I play cribbage fairly often. We just played a set of 3 games not long ago and we both played very well, I thought. I had picked up a few pointers from Cribbage Classic, but didn’t do much better than I usually do. In fact, we usually play 2 or 3 games, the 3rd to break the tie in order to be the “best of the best of the best—sir!” I lost the 3rd game but had so much fun playing I didn’t mind.

Anyway, Cribbage Classic is a no-nonsense web-based cribbage game which teaches you not only the fundamentals of the game, but also analyses your play with respect to the two features over which you have a modicum of control: the discard to the crib and pegging. It critiques your discards and pegging play and it tracks your improvement (or lack thereof) over the number of games you play.

Cribbage Classic also has a discard analyzer, which allows you to look at large numbers of possible crib discards while the computer tells you the optimal discard for each hand.

There are 3 levels of play, Easy, Standard, and Pro. It allows you to count your hands manually and even play Muggins along with that. One of the most helpful features is the setting which warns you of suboptimal crib discards—and allows you to try again! There’s a hint button setting for all levels.  

Best of all, it’s free! Ads are minimal. And if your internet service goes out, you could download the game from Microsoft Store, also for free. It gets only a 3-star rating, though. I guess that’s why I haven’t downloaded it. There are many more reviews (over 600 when I checked recently) for this game on line than the two other cribbage games I’ve downloaded. Many critics say it favors the computer opponent. That hasn’t been my impression so far from the on-line version, though I haven’t played at the Pro level.

The graphics are simple. There are no cute character opponents, no sounds, and the card and background selection options are not fancy. It’s advertised for Windows 10 and it works fine on my computer which has Windows 11.

I’ve tried fancy cribbage games and it seems I either win every game or lose all of them—which is not realistic. Cribbage Classic is realistic, meaning on average you’ll win about half the time. That means when I make crappy crib discards, I sometimes win in spite of them and when I make great discards using the hint button as a crutch, I sometimes lose anyway.

I make lousy crib discards so much, it’s a little embarrassing. On average, I make about 5 or more bad tosses to the discard pile every game. I guess some players would contest the computer suggestions. The points the computer says you lose on some discards can amount to only a couple of tenths of a point, which I think I can ignore.

I’ll consider trying the download version of Cribbage Classic and let you know if I think it’s really different from the web-based product. In the meantime, if you like cribbage, why not try Cribbage Classic on the web and let me know what you think?

Cribbage Tee Shirts!

Sena got me a couple of cribbage themed T-shirts and they arrived yesterday. One of them is perfect for a retiree like me. The other has an image of the perfect 29 hand. It’s also perfect for me, not because I’ve ever had a 29 hand, but because I’ll take any lucky talisman I can get.

They’re extra-large because they’re 100 per cent cotton—not because I have an Arnold Schwarzenegger chest. They’ll shrink some, but we won’t leave them in the dryer very long.

One or both should be lucky for me, so I might wear them when we play. Usually, the winner is whoever wins 2 out of 3 games. We don’t use the skunk rule and we don’t play muggins. In fact, we help each other count our scores.

We switch off between playing Scrabble or cribbage. I usually lose the Scrabble games. The other day she played “um.” I looked at her and said “Um?” She just said, “Challenge me.”

I decided not to challenge and was glad. I still lost. I looked it up later in the Scrabble dictionary and it’s in there. It means to hesitate or pause speaking. Believe it or not, “ummed,” “umming,” and “ums” are also legal.

“Ummification” is not legal.

Cribbage scoring is more straightforward than that, and if you can count to 31, you’re generally OK.

Kickball Challenge in June!

The annual Kickball challenge between University of Iowa Department of Psychiatry Residents and Faculty is coming up in June. You know what that means.

Losers suspend the winners’ trophy in Jello. Somebody did that when we played Matball several years ago. If you need a recipe:

Matball was the forerunner of Kickball in the department. I think the Kickball rules are here. Federal law says you have to play in 95-degree heat with insane humidity driving the perceived temperature to slightly above that on the surface of the sun. Other rules:

If the ball melts, faculty wins.

For every point the residents score, faculty automatically score 5.

Faculty may tackle the base runner at any time.

If it rains, faculty win by 10 points.

The thing to do is to recruit Sasquatch for your side, who will always boot the ball into the next county. Bring many replacement balls. Sasquatch will bring the beef jerky.

The games are fun to watch. Residents jumping over faculty; Faculty collapsing from heat stroke.

I never played.

I’m trying to recall whether faculty ever won a game. I don’t think we ever did. I think that’s why the trophy ended up in Jello.

CrossCribb Marathon Rookies

We finally started making a video of us playing CrossCribb. It took a while, partly because it takes more time to finish a game than we thought it would. If we’re playing it right, each hand or round takes about 8-10 minutes including scoring. We figure you’re supposed to play to 31, according to the rules. We played and filmed 6 rounds before our camera’s battery had to be recharged. We were 30-29 at that point with me leading.

Later when the battery was recharged, we played the 7th round. I won by a nose.

I’m not sure that making an hour long CrossCribb video will win any academy awards so I might plan this as a series of videos, one per round.

Playing it is a lot of fun! No wonder it has won awards. Knowing how to count cribbage points in cards gives you a leg up on playing and scoring.

You can find the rules on the web site.