Last night we were lucky enough to be invited to stay for supper with some great friends following the annual Oakley Court carol service. After eating we were casually invited to play some cards. Fabulous. The crib board was produced and the games began. I took an absolute drubbing - not helped by playing against a Jedi Crib Master - "these are not the cards you're looking for".
Humiliated and dejected I decided to take on my iphone to claw back some self respect. During this first game, I was taking the lead and feeling very confident and then I was presented with this hand.
So obviously I could sit and work out the mathematical possibilities and the appropriate probability distribution but I was taking a, ahem, 10 minute break and so I made a snap decision. I would discard the 4 and the 3 since the resulting hand was worth 14 in its own right.
Blast, who'd've thought it, I should have kept the 4 and the 3. This meant that my hand is now still only worth 14 but if I'd thrown the 10 and a 5 into my crib I'd have had a hand worth 18 and a stronger seeded crib.
Adding insult to injury my crib was only worth 4 points but had I have thrown in the 5 and 10, it would have been worth 8 making my total score 26, a full 10 points more than my actual score of 16. I guess an implicit, Jedi like understanding of probability is what one must develop to make the more likely (to succeed) selection, repeatedly. Still I beat the iPhone - scant satisfaction though, as I know deep down that Master Sandy would have punished the choice mercilessly. I'll lay down my sweet head......
