Monday, December 22, 2008

Blocking in Chinese Checkers

QUESTION: What happens if another player's marbles have not cleared the point sufficiently to put your marbles in?  My partner had me waiting (quite a while) while he pulled his marbles out and made their way across the board.  We just 'passed' the turns until I could move, but in a real game would it have been the end of the game?

ANSWER: You played that correctly. If you can't move, you simply pass your turn until you get the opportunity to move a marble.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Tricky Cribbage Hand to Score


QUESTION

I think this hand is 32 points – 4,5,6,6,   5 cut

4,5,6=15-2
4,5,6= 15-4
4, 5, 6=15-6
4,5,6=15-8
Double run – 4566=8 for 16
Double run – 4556=8 for 24
Double run-455 with the other 6=32 

Can you tell me what I am doing wrong?

ANSWER

I believe the hand is scored as follows:

4,5,6=15-2
4,5,6= 15-4
4, 5, 6=15-6
4,5,6=15-8
Double Double run – 45566=16 for 24

The scoring for a Double Double run (3 cards consecutive with two pairs) breaks down as follows:

456 for 3
456 for 6
456 for 9
456 for 12
55 pair for 14
66 pair for 16

Aces Always Low in Cribbage

Cribbage Rules Clarification: In cribbage, aces are always low. That means you can't make high card runs with an ace. For example, the run queen-king-ace is not allowed.

Big Rummy Tournament this Weekend, $10,000 Prize

Rummy Royal is holding a big Kalooki 51 tournament this weekend. Kaluki is essentially a version of Rummy. There's a guaranteed prize of $10,000.

The tournament will begin on Sunday, December 21st, 15:00 ET (20:00 GMT). The buy-in is $55 with three available rebuys.

Daily satellite tournaments with buy-ins of $7 and $3.25 are still taking place. The prizes in these tournaments are one or two $55 vouchers that can be used to register or to rebuy into the $10,000 tourney.