The Cribbage Stats Mega Post

It's time for more information than anybody asked for about the games of cribbage that we played on the trip. As you can see over on the right hand side of the blog I was keeping track of our cribbage games that we played while traveling. I had a little black moleskin notebook that I recorded everything in. Now that we are back I loaded everything into an excel spreadsheet and went down a bit of a rabbit hole. I'm sure everything presented here won't hold up to any standard of actual statistical significance but I think it's interesting and fun anyway. 

One thing I didn't keep track of (mainly because it would have been a pain to do so) was how many points we pegged. Of course, pegging is a crucial part of the game so I'm sort only focusing on AVG while completely ignoring OBP to use a baseball analogy but that's alright. I'll have to manage with the data I have. Without further ado...

As you can see, Chrissy narrowly edged me out by one game. I had a wicked hot start winning 11 of the first 13 games, but Chrissy caught fire beginning with the last game in Turkey through a good chunk of our time in Southeast Asia. She won 13 of 16 during a stretch that saw her finally catch up to my early lead. Neither of us won more than six in a row at any stretch. .

 Almost two-thirds of our games were played in 5 of the 19 countries we played games in (Germany, Turkey, Thailand, Australia, and the US). Of course, those are some of the countries we spent the most time in so it makes sense. The only country we visited where we did not play was the United Arab Emirates, but to be fair we were only there for about 14 hours on a layover.

Wins were pretty even in most places except Thailand where Chrissy won 9 out of 11 (part of the aforementioned 13 out of 16 stretch). Randomly, I won games in five countries (Iceland, Norway, Austria, Bosnia, and Canada) where Chrissy did not win a game. However, Chrissy did have the edge on games won in the same city. She won 5 in Berlin, 5 in Chiang Mai, and 4 in Airlie Beach. The most I won in any single city was 3 games.

 I broke down where we played our games into 8 location types. As you can see about three quarters of the games were played where we were currently staying or in a park or space outside. The historical house is the Khun Phaen House in Ayutthaya, Thailand which is a traditional teak house built in 1894. It's surrounded by ruins, but is not actually a ruin itself so it got its own category. The navy ship is the HMAS Diamantina which is currently located in Brisbane, Australia. The ruins were probably some of the coolest places we played games though.  They included Roman theaters in Turkey and ancient temples in Thailand and Cambodia.

Wins are pretty even by location type.  I had the edge for parks, while Chrissy took it in restaurants/cafes/bars and ruins.  We were dead even in lodging where we played the most games.

I won the cut to start the game 7 more times than Chrissy did.

Winning the cut lead to a modest increase in likelihood of winning the game according to this chart.

Chrissy won 56% of the time when she won the cut (35 of 62).

I won 55% of the time when I won the cut (38 of 69).

As you can see, the margin of victory was all over the place from game to game. The highest was 48 and the lowest was one. 

The average margin of victory for all games was 14.92. 

The average margin of victory in games Chrissy won was 13.71. 

The average margin of victory in games I won was 16.15. 

Interestingly, the most common margin of victory was one. We played 12 games where someone won by only one point. There were 10 games where someone was skunked (a victory of 31 or greater). Chrissy had 4 skunks and I had 6. In all of those instances the skunker also had the high hand which would seem to make sense. More randomly, I won the cut in 9 out of 10 of them.

The high hand also fluctuated from game to game ranging from 10 to 24. The highest hand you can possibly have is 29. 

The average high hand for all games was 16.29. 

The average high hand in games Chrissy won was 16.15. 

The average high hand in games that I won was 16.43. 

As you might imagine, 16 was also far and away the high hand that was most common happening in 48 of our 131 games (over one-third). There is no evidence of having a very high hand in a game leading to more skunks. 7 of the 10 skunks had a high hand of 16 or lower.

Who had the highest hand was split pretty evenly.  I had the higher hand in one more game than Chrissy.  We both tied for the highest hand in 16 games.

Having the high hand would appear to give you a better chance of winning the game according to this chart which would make sense.  

In games that Chrissy had or tied for the high hand she won 67% of the time (49 of 73).  

In games that I had or tied for the high hand I won 70% of the time (52 of 74).

In games that Chrissy had the high hand outright she won 77% of the time (44 of 57). 

In games that I had the high hand outright I won 71% of the time (41 of 58).

Finally, winning the cut and having the high hand outright seem to give the best likelihood of winning in my totally unscientific work.

In games that Chrissy won the cut and had the high hand outright she won 81% of the time (22 of 27).

In games that I won the cut and had the high hand outright I won 83% of the time (24 of 29).