A friend of mine told me today that he recently scored 29 points in one hand during a game of Cribbage. He says that that is the highest score possible & that one can play the game their entire life & not get a 29 point hand. This begs the question: What are the odds of getting a 29 point hand in Cribbage?
Doug Hagen
Seattle, Wa.
Well, IANAS (as my other thread posts will show), but there is only one way to score 29 points (IIRC it is to have your hand be 5 5 5 5 and the draw to be the jack). Or it might be J J J J with a 5 draw - same odds either way.
I’m horrid at this sort of stuff, but I can set it up.
You are dealt 6 cards from a 52 card deck, and choose 4. The deck is cut and the top card is flipped over. What are the odds that you would pull 5 5 5 5 and the card flipped over was any jack?
With any luck, someone smarter than I like Cabbage will be able to answer it from here…
sethdallob - the hand you need to get is three fives and a jack of the suit which you don’t have the five in. The cut card needs to be the remaining five. (Therefore you get one point for Knobs).
Four jacks in your hand and a five cut would only net you 21 points. (8 Points for 4 combos of 15, 12 points for four of a kind, and 1 point for Knobs.)
4 fives with a jack cut (or a 10, queen, or king) is a 28 hand.
This site provides some statistics on the possiblities of each possible score for a hand.
Neither of those hands are 29. The first is a twenty-eight, and the second is only twenty-one.
Umm, yeah. That’s what I said over and hour and a half earlier. Sheesh!