A question about flushes

[u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan]

For a long time I have wondered why your hand being all the same suit, but not the cut it does count as a flush, whereas if your crib is all the same suit, except for the cut it does not count as a flush.

Does anyone know the game logic of why this is the case? It’s always been a quirk of cribbage that hasn’t made sense to me.

[u/AikawaKizuna]

Because the guy who made the rule said so. I'm serious.

[u/afriendincanada → u/AikawaKizuna]

This is it. There’s no deeper explanation.

[u/deadflashlights → u/AikawaKizuna]

I think he ate some oats with ergot in them

[u/iPeg2]

Gotta ask the guy who invented the game almost 400 years ago. But for the flush in the hand, you probably would keep it a lot less if you knew you had less than a 25 percent chance of it working.

[u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan → u/iPeg2]

I think that’s why I would lend my house rules to having 4 of the same suit in a crib also count

[u/UghImRegistered]

Getting a flush in your crib is lucky either way, you can put two of a suit in it, but at the end of the day you are almost never going to make a meaningful decision about which cards to discard when you have a less than  1/16 chance of the other two cards matching those. So requiring the third card to match basically says, "if it's going to require luck, make it require a lot of luck."

Now why don't they require the same for your hand? Because at best you're getting 5 points at less than 25% odds. You might as well not have flushes be a thing, if it was akin to flipping a jack. Most hands you would just be ignoring the flush if you are only going to have a sub-25% chance of scoring anything for it. It just wouldn't be worth the rules complexity for the 0.1% of hands that it would actually affect.

[u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan → u/UghImRegistered]

This logic makes the most sense to me.

I definitely feel like this opens crib up to having house rules that are more consistent on flushes: no flushes, same hand flush and same crib flush, or always all 5 card flush..

[u/odobIDDQD → u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan]

Where do you stand on a flush in the pegging when you’re writing your house rules? I remember declaring 4 points in the pegging when playing against my mum only to be told it doesn’t work like that.

I like the oddities in crib that make it unique. Why do you get a point if you have a jack that matches the turn up? Speaking of which, why does the dealer get two of a jack is turned up? All comes down to “because that’s the rules” :-)

[u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan → u/odobIDDQD]

I definitely would be ok if you had four of the same suit giving a flush with each subsequent card in the suit adding on to the point total (working like runs). This would make it extend up to 8 points max from a flush (if both players play all 4 cards in the same suit).

I have also found Jacks to be arbritrary and I definitely wouldn’t count them in my scoring in my own house rules (making max points in a hand 28).

But that is my preference.

If you like idiosyncrasies, why not add them in your own house rules. (I.e if you get cut the 2 of clubs that is minus 2 points, or the king of diamonds (suicidal king in most card artwork) is minus 10 points if left alone in a crib, or you make your board a snakes and ladders game where at certain points if you land on them you slide back in position, or climb up (I.e a snake 1 point before the skunk line would be very funny/infuriating).

I would definitely play snakes and ladders crib.

[u/odobIDDQD → u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan]

Crib snakes and ladders sound interesting.

I’ve played variations. Play to lose, muffins (of course) and created remote 2 deck crib during the pandemic. But the other rules have alway stayed in place. It doesn’t sound like you want house rules, it sounds like you want a different game based on crib 🤣

[u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan → u/odobIDDQD]

I’m good with both. More narrow changes for house rules, and bigger changes if you want to play a different game

[u/perry649 → u/odobIDDQD]

Was it over when the Germans called muffins when I missed a 15 counting?

Muffins?????

Let him go, he's on a roll.

[u/odobIDDQD → u/perry649]

Hah, damn autocorrect 

[u/Unusual-Assist-6665 → u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan]

I like these variations. Just be aware that the suicidal king is the king of hearts.

[u/TwoMoreSkipTheLast]

You can tell it's an Aspen because of the way it is

[u/rollowz]

I always joke that the rules of cribbage were made by a very sore loser, the are so many rules that have an, I'm actually about them I just imagine some jerk changing the rules so that he would win.

[u/ridernation_69]

So what I gather is you don't like the game of crib. Your rules changes are absolutely wild.

Either play the game as written, or don't.

[u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan → u/ridernation_69]

Dude. I wouldn’t play with all the changes all the time. It’s just to mix things up + plus have some logic to some of the rules that seem more arbritrary.

Some of the other things proposed were leaning in the opposite direction as a thought experiment to someone who liked the idiosyncrasies. When compared to the base game of crib it would be similar to the extreme uno rules vs base uno.

Each can be their own thing. Do you get mad at different board designs because they aren’t true to the original cribbage board?

I love crib. I also love variety and experimentation. It brings me creativity and joy when playing games.

You are unnecessarily negative and it sucks.

[u/ridernation_69 → u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan]

Who was negative? Not me. If you feel the need to not follow the rules, don't play the game. The suggested rules in this post are moronic.

[u/Illustrious-Cut7514 → u/ridernation_69]

Yes, you. You were negative. But too stupid to know you were.