Daily Cribbage

One date produces one reproducible starting hand

Daily Cribbage converts the selected local date into a deterministic seed. That seed controls the shuffle, the first dealer and deterministic AI tie-breaks. It does not predetermine the result. Your two crib discards and every card you choose during pegging change the path. Reopening the same date therefore means returning to the same starting contract or its saved continuation rather than watching a fixed scripted game.

The Daily session contains the complete hand cycle

The Daily route is not just a scoring question. Both players begin with six cards, each contributes two cards to the dealer’s crib, the starter is cut, pegging is completed and the show is counted. The date’s result is based on the points each side actually earned through his heels, pegging, hand count and crib count during that one full hand.

Dealer ownership is date-stable

Dealer position changes the value of the two cards you send away because the crib belongs to only one player. The Daily seed fixes who deals for that date so a refresh does not quietly reverse the strategic problem. The first pegging lead still belongs to the non-dealer, and the show still counts the non-dealer before the dealer and crib.

The starter is part of the Daily identity

After all four crib cards are chosen, the next deck card becomes the public starter. A Jack immediately gives the dealer two points for his heels. During the show the starter then participates in fifteens, pairs, runs, flushes and nobs. Autosave records it so a resumed Daily hand cannot accidentally cut a different card.

Daily pegging uses the same legal move engine

No card may make the running total exceed thirty-one. Reaching fifteen or thirty-one scores two, equal consecutive ranks can score pairs, and the newest public cards can form a run even when they were not played in numerical order. The same core functions are called by Practice, Daily, the local AI and the independent verifier.

Go is preserved instead of silently skipped

If all of your remaining cards would push the count over thirty-one, the Go button becomes the legal action. The computer follows the same rule. The other player continues if possible, the final card below thirty-one earns one point, and the count resets with the correct next leader. This keeps the Daily session faithful to the turn structure rather than automatically jumping to the next sequence.

The show uses exact combination counting

Every subset that totals fifteen scores two. Every equal-rank pair scores two. Runs can multiply when duplicate ranks create several distinct longest sequences. Hand flushes and crib flushes follow their different rules, and a Jack matching the starter suit scores nobs. Daily does not replace these calculations with a rough “hand strength” estimate.

A transparent breakdown explains the show

When pegging finishes, the result panel reports each counted component for the non-dealer hand, dealer hand and crib. That makes the Daily hand useful for arithmetic practice: you can see how much came from fifteens, pairs, runs, flushes and nobs instead of receiving only a final point total.

The famous twenty-nine is part of the same scorer

The maximum twenty-nine-point hand does not need a special shortcut in the app. It falls out of the same combination scorer that handles ordinary hands. The release verifier freezes a canonical twenty-nine fixture so future changes to fifteen, pair or nobs logic cannot silently break the maximum hand.

The local AI never sees your hidden cards

During pegging the computer is given its own remaining cards and public information: starter, played sequence, running count, dealer, score and Go state. It is not passed your hand or the unseen remainder of the deck. Its crib-discard heuristic likewise receives only its six cards and crib ownership. Daily determinism therefore does not create hidden-information cheating.

Hint changes the Daily result to Assisted

Hint can recommend two cards to send to the crib or point to a legal pegging card. Using it marks the hand Assisted. Undo does the same because it restores an earlier decision state. The Daily history keeps the clean/assisted fact rather than hiding coaching behind the same label.

Autosave preserves the exact phase

The local save includes the six-card discard phase, selected crib cards, starter, remaining pegging cards, public sequence, running count, Go state, score, assistance state and final show result. Leaving after one pegging card and returning to the same date therefore resumes that decision instead of reconstructing an approximate hand.

A completed Daily hand stays completed

When the show finishes, the result is written into the Cribbage specialist history and the final state remains in the date’s autosave. Reopening that date restores the completed `handEnd` result. This prevents a refresh from offering a second fresh attempt on the same Daily identity.

The specialist streak is separate from Today’s 6

Completing a date advances only the Cribbage Daily history and streak. It does not add a thirteenth game, replace a slot or write a result into the main Today’s 6 `days` state. Cumulative QA checks the frozen 2026 six-slot sequence separately and explicitly rejects Cribbage appearing in that lineup.

Practice and Race to 121 use the same engine

Practice Hand is useful when you want another deterministic hand without waiting for a new date. Race to 121 carries points across alternating dealers and ends as soon as one side reaches the target, including during pegging or before later show phases. All modes share the same card, scoring and legality functions.

Local records do not pretend to be a global rating

The browser may record hands completed, hand wins, clean wins, game wins, best show and the specialist Daily streak. Those are factual local results. There is no account-backed opponent pool or verified global population, so Daily Cribbage does not manufacture an Elo, worldwide percentile or skill rank.

No wagering or paid randomness

The cards are used only for a free strategy and counting game. There are no wagers, chips, prizes, stakes, purchases or paid-random mechanics. The Daily challenge is about finding a strong crib discard, managing public pegging totals and counting the resulting hand correctly.