The power of position

If you’ve played poker, especially no-limit Texas Hold ’em, you know about the power of position. When you have position (meaning you’re last to act in the round) you have a big advantage because everyone else has to go before you do, and you get information from them based on what they do (or don’t do). Or to put it the other way, if you don’t have position you have to act first and you don’t know what your opponent is going to do behind you. Position is extremely important in NLHE, but I was thinking recently about how it’s important in many other games too.

Game trivia

Thought it might be fun to put up some trivia questions. I thought I would post a few I made up a and a few I stole from other places, but I ended up coming up with all of these on my own. I hope you enjoy!

1. What is the only (4 card) hand in Cribbage that cannot be improved no matter what card is cut?

2. The best starting hand in Hold ’em poker is AA (two Aces). What is the second best starting hand?

3. How many tiles are there in a regulation Scrabble game?

4. If you’re playing Cribbage and you have a Five in your hand, what is the fewest points you can have (including the cut card)?

5. Everyone knows about “grand slams” in baseball, but what other game uses that term for the ultimate show of offense?

6. In Cassino, what is the most points you can get on the opening play?

7. In Cassino, there are two ways to guarantee there will be no further sweeps during a round. One is by creating an “orphan”, like when you have played three Tens and the fourth one is trailed. What is the other way?

8. Which of the following is the least likely?
a) Being dealt a straight flush in 5 Card Draw poker
b) Getting a near-perfect 28 point hand in Cribbage
c) Rolling a Yahtzee in Ones in one roll
d) Flipping a coin and having it come up heads 15 times in a row

9. BONUS followup question! Which is less likely, getting dealt a royal flush in 5 card poker or getting a perfect 29 point hand in Cribbage?

10. Which of these popular board games was printed first?
a) Monopoly
b) Sorry!
c) Life
d) Scrabble

Crazy awesome hands

Thought it might be fun to talk about some of the best hands I’ve ever had while playing games over the years. These are all pretty rare so they were a lot of fun to catch and fun to remember later too.

In-depth: Cribbage Pt. 2 – The Endgame

This is a continuation of my previous Cribbage post. In this part I’d like to talk about the endgame. When you and the opponent are both over 100 points strategies shift, and a lot of people don’t pay attention and end up losing games or not giving themselves all the chances they should to win.

In-depth: Cribbage Pt 1 – Throwing and Playing

I thought it might be fun to pick one game and go into some in-depth strategy for it. I don’t know how many of these I’ll be able to do, since I’m not really qualified to be offering that much in-depth stuff, but I’ll give it a go. If you’re a Serious Cribbage Player (SCP) that plays in tournaments and that kind of stuff then this is kid’s stuff, but hopefully the typical casual player can pick up a thing or two!

2 player games

When you’re lucky enough to gather up a group of friends for a game day finding a game to play isn’t difficult. There are many great fun games out there meant to be played in a group setting. In fact, oftentimes you’ll have the problem of too many games too choose from and not enough time to play them all! But when it’s just you and a friend or your significant other your choices are a lot more limited. I’d like to list some of the best 2 player games I know and what makes them fun to come back to again and again.

Pro Tips

My idea for this post is to just give some quick tips that will be helpful for various games. I’m writing these assuming you’ve played the game in question, so if you haven’t they probably won’t make much sense, but then again a lot of games are similar, so they might be useful after all. These are meant more for beginning or average players, so if you’re really good at a given game these tips probably won’t be all that helpful.