Cribbage JD Reviews

Cribbage is a great game, but that app completely ruins it. The higher rating you are, the worse your card luck gets. I’ve slowly made my way up to Master, and now have about a 2-20 record over my last 22 games, only having been dealer to start for 2 of those 20. Seriously how brain dead do these developers have to be for a player to not start with the deal that many times in a row. It’s ridiculous. Not to mention the card luck. Everyone knows this game is mostly card luck as long as you know which cards to keep and play for the most part, so how can a player go 6 games in a row without receiving a hand that can earn even 10 points while opponents are getting 12+ points in their hand and crib every other turn. I’m deleting CribbageJD and never downloading again. Absolutely pathetic.

I don’t believe the cards to be random especially at the end of the game. When you are close to pegging out with a big lead, the opponent always seems to get that huge hand to get the win. It happens very often. Also, there are very few low scoring hands which happens frequently with real cards. CribbageJD seems to always cut the card that helps both players. The game is also coded to keep the average at 1000. When you start climbing, the game will give opponents wins to bring you back down. It’s too bad the cards are not random because this game has a great format and it’s better than a lot of other apps. It’s more aggravating than fun because it is rigged.

I’ll preface that this review with the fact that this review is based on comparing to how cards are shuffled and drawn in real life gameplay.

This is the second cribbage app I’ve gotten and I come to the same issue. The actual gameplay and functionality is fine, but the luck of the draw more often than not goes far in your favor or far against you from round to round. I’ll play a round and players with 2 points flop a card that gives them 16 or they’ll start with 6-7-7-8. Which happens, but in CribbageJD it happens in back to back to back hands for one player and the “luck” shifts to either me skunking someone or getting skunked. Previous app developer told me how random their cards are, so I guess don’t take my word, play a few rounds in real life and compare them to a few rounds here and see for yourself. A bit frustrating. Will keep searching for an app that compares to a real life shuffle.

Update: decided to uninstall. The amount of 14-20 point hands in a single round is getting worse as my level increases somehow. Again, some in my favor, some not.

The only thing random about this game is the choice of opponent. Aside from that, the cards are ridiculously predictable. You can go on a winning streak that would get you thrown out of Vegas, then go on a prodigious bender of a losing streak. The ways in which you can win or lose games are boggle the mind. Add to that the astronomical amount of points routinely dealt out and you’ve got a game that is laughable. So if you really want a game that deals a fair hand, go somewhere else. That said, there a great many more cribbage games available that are mostly for children. So choose your poison. This game gives and takes in equally bizarre fashion.

Overall, I like this game as it has a good design and relatively quick pace. A few issues have knocked it down a few stars for me.
1) The game force wait time with ‘Go’. I don’t need to wait a couple seconds for it to happen. Also make it more noticeable on screen.
2) Playing online against people, I never want to play with their chosen board. Some are ok, but others are difficult to see. I’d like an option to only play with the board of my choice for my screen.
3) Card distribution. Over the course of thousands of hands, it will balance out but on a game by game or hand by hand basis, it’s laughable. There’s something off with the array shuffle algorithm or the random seed. Statistically, too many 3/4 of a kind and 5/6 card straights dealt in hands each game to be realistic. Looking at Cribbage hand distribution charts shows it’s just not going to happen every other game like this. The point at which I stopped taking it seriously was playing online and someone had 3 straight 20+ point hands (excluding peg/crib).

Game is nice and clean. However, it’s fixed. Almost nothing is random. At least 7-8x out of 10, the cards thrown into the crib for the computer results in points, often multiple points. As random as the cards are that I try to discard, the computer finds a way to pair-up or create a run with the card that is cut. I get lucky with the cut at times, but it’s one or the other, rarely nothing for either. The computer also tends to get an inordinate amount of fives. That being said, I still manage to win 8-9x out of 10 on the hard level, but I don’t walk away thinking I’m talented due to all of the electronic manipulation. Haven’t found one better though.

I agree with many others that this game is rigged. It’s coded to even out the players and to give the underdog a Hail-Mary in the last rounds. I’ve been playing cribbage forever and I’ve never experienced so many 20 plus hands as you do in just a few matches. AND, It’s almost guaranteed that the player that’s behind will get 14+ points in the last 2-3 rounds. That just doesn’t normally happen in the real game. This cribbage app is sort of a joke compared to the real world of cards. Pathetic that the developer stoops to this level of balancing the players.

I find that the hands do repeat plus at a percentage of 98% I can pretty much tell how the up card value is going to be based on the hand I’m dealt. I find it pretty much gives you a nodge in how to play/throw your cards to the crib.
I’d prefer to count out the hands but you can knock out 3-5 games in ten (10) minutes at least that what I experience when I’m playing a friend in a private room.
Been playing Cribbage since I was in diapers and now I’m old and in diapers again playing Cribbage🤣😂👍🏻

I agree with Tommy, who wrote “It’s all in the cards”. There is just one glaring oversight that I recently noticed … if you ‘bounce’ to another app in the middle of a game, you can’t resume it. Rather than offering a ‘Resume previous game’ option, CribbageJD simply resets to the opening screen when you return to it.
The game play, randomness of the cards, scaling of the program’s ‘skill’ at different levels are all great —- I’m currently playing “Insane Monkey” on a regular basis … and the next level beyond that recently opened up for me.

Good enough to keep me from looking for another version. The play is unnecessarily too slow. When pegging, if one player has played their cards, the game takes the time to give them a chance to play, then says go and then cycles to the other player who is looking to unload their final cards and has tapped on them at least 8 times. The process only takes about a second give or take but is a waste. In a live game, if one player has no cards, the other player throws down the remaining card(s) all at once and doesn’t take the time to check.
Also when pegging , if I am not holding a card that would make a play of 31 or less, there should be an instant notification saying so. Not your turn, 1 sec, oh you cannot play. Why is this not done so? Yes the video game is undeniably faster than a live game even if shuffling and dealing where somehow made instant but still why do we have these redundant pauses in the game? Clean it up

Two reasons for the 4 star rating and not 5.
At the end of each game a banner appears covering the results of the last hand of the game, so annoying.
The whole level advancement is stupid, having to win a curtain % to play the most difficult level doesn’t make any sense. Manipulation of the hands dealt does not depict true life playing. Set the dealing to 100% random and let me play unmanipulated cribbage. Now having said that, there is some satisfaction in beating the computer in spite of the hand manipulation.

I love CribbageJD. Enough to give it five stars, but I've got one complaint. I play this game all the time and it allows me to play cribbage (my favorite game!) with people because often no one at home wants to play 10 games in a row with me...

My complaint is that when you send messages in-game, they cover up your hand if you're selecting what to put in the crib. It's just enough that it's hard to see the first card's number on the top because of the text box getting in the way.

I play on-line against my brother and we have played over 10,000 games. Game plays fast which we like.
Areas for improvement:
1) Can’t download a photo to use as the avatar. I’ve tried dozens of times and even though I upload the photo it never appears.
2) 5’s are the most important card in cribbage; however, my brother has 2,000 more 5’s than I have (we keep dozens of stats for each game). Still don’t understand why the uneven distribution of that important card.

This is a very entertaining game that I play nearly every day. You can play it while letting the game do all the counting or, as I like to do, count the points myself and then compare my count to the game’s to find what I missed. If I can’t find the points I missed to explain the difference between the game’s count and mine, it will even show me all the counts. That is a good way to get better at playing and keeps my brain engaged. The game is cleverly designed to keep the player competing by strategically improving or handicapping the hands dealt to always keep the player working and learning.

My wife and I have played countless online / app versions of cribbage. Others have a poorly-designed interface and complicated user navigation, or they quit when there is any minor internet disconnect and you lose your game.

CribbageJD is simple to learn, has great native features, and never quits. At worst, we’ve seen a 5-10 second delay if we lose internet connection, but CribbageJD always remembers where we were in our game.

I can also be a lazy SOB, so I admit the automated counting feature is nice. :-)

Near perfect mobile cribbage game.

I love the ability to see the best cards to throw for a given hand, and the breakdown with minimum, maximum, average, and crib average. It might be nice if the “score” wasn’t based on the rank of options (100 for best choice, 93 for second best), but rather a comparison of the total average. For example, if the #1 option averages 5.06 points, and what I chose averages 4.98 points, I think that should be scored somewhere around 98% for how close it is to maximal, rather than the 93 is would currently get for being the second best option. It’s a small unimportant change, but I think it makes more sense.

Great online integration, amazing stat system, achievements are a wonderful challenge. My only qualm is that some achievements require exact hand/pegging/crib/round scores. If you score higher than the highest achievement, you don’t receive it unless you get exactly what the achievement says. In some cases it makes sense, like scoring and 18 or a 1 hand because they are very rare. However, I’d like to get all of the pegging achievements since I pegged a 19. I can’t believe I did I don’t even remember it, but it’s in my stats.

It would be nice if you had a reverse button / crib selection /some time count hit wrong card / for those that want to go fast / but maybe shouldn’t !!! Everyone’s a bit different !!! Your holding the cards so it’s different !!!!
Do you play CRIBBAGE ?????? 😲😃I do like the game !!! What is crazy nija?
Ok should be pretty easy !!!! I could talk through it 😲😃💪🏽👍🏽. (R). (P) ok thanks !!!! Not to long pleases Test it out !!!!!! Maybe a whole new game
Iam looooking for interesting work !!! GRD/cribbage champ MAUI 👍🏽💪🏽/
Going Colorado feb 22 TOURNAMENT !!! One “29” ALOHA FROM LAHAINA TOM🖼🖼🖼🖼🖼MITCHELL 🕺

I have always loved cribbage and now I can play with friends online! We have our room, meet there while chatting on the phone (or not) for a break in our day.
Likes: it scores for us, and shows a little recap of how the hands played out which is nice esp when I didn’t get the same total on my hand or crib.
Dislikes: it also shows what would have been a better discard to the crib. But I don’t like that because it’s based on stats or something, I don’t know. But many times the cards I tossed were a higher point value in the end than what they think I should have played. I wish it would explain why I actually should have discarded this other option because it’s not helping me learn this way.
Love this game!

We had a group of 4 guys get together weekly to play 4 handed. We also got together with our spouses on a monthly basis to play 8 handed. With covid-19, we haven’t been able to get together so your program has enabled us to at least play each other online. I find your program is easy to set up, play and is very accurate. Now all you have to do is help us play our 4 handed game. Thanks again for helping us stay in touch with our cribbage partners. I have also been able to play my grandson, which is absolutely fantastic.