Cribbage Strategy & Tips
The game of cribbage in Cribbage Pro is not technically different than in any other game of cribbage, particularly in Multiplayer where the standard tips and strategy recommendations you will find in many places online are good to form your basic approach. The first place to start is by checking the Cribbage Pro Blog where will find posts that use the data we collect in Cribbage Pro multiplayer games and answer some of the most common questions in cribbage. Some of the top strategy posts on the blog are:
- What makes the best cribbage players so good?
- Should You Pair Your Opponent’s Lead?
- What card should I lead? (and part 2)
- How should you respond to pones lead?
- Discarding and the Cribbage Pro discard tables
There are also many tips available at the American Cribbage Congress website that you should read through.
However, in single player against the computer player in Cribbage Pro, many will find it extremely challenging to win against the Brutal, or even Challenging computer difficulty setting. The reason for this is likely that the style of play that the computer opponent implements is one you simply would never see fully utilized by a human player. The strategy used by the computer on the Advanced level is incredibly computationally intensive, and not one that a human could implement in any games played in the “real world” as they would have to be a very fast super human calculator to do so. The closest method you could compare it to would be the many discard tables you see in cribbage strategy discussions all over the Internet, but think of the computer strategy in Cribbage Pro as a system that computationally derives those tables for each and every play and adapts to the play in the game based on the changing probabilities. However, this strategy is primarily a discard strategy and it has weaknesses that can be exploited and many win much more than 50% of the time once they discover the weaknesses.
To start building your strategy, the first thing you need to do is know your opponent. To that end, a study of the general philosophy of using discard tables in cribbage is important. Read up on some of these strategies by visiting the sites listed below. Once you have a solid grasp of discard table strategy in cribbage, take another look back at the tips and other resources available at the American Cribbage Congress website to build your counter strategy.
- A good set of free discard tables are Schell’s discard tables, and the discussion there is a great place to start
- Also, check out other general cribbage strategy and discussion on that same website
- General cribbage strategy is also presented at the Cribbage Corner website
- Visit the Daily Cribbage Hand, well, daily, as well! It can be a great learning tool to see all of the input from expert players, and super fun to challenge yourself with.
- Finally, no list would be complete without Wikipedia and their brief cribbage strategy overview
Ultimately, practicing your strategy and developing your own personal approach over time is what will put you on top and increase your win percentage.