Playing for the Skunk

Even the best players find themselves with their backs to the wall in a tournament. In these situations, the great players will change their game style to maximize their chances to make it through qualifying, or to end up in the money in a grass roots tournament. This generally means that they end up having to play for a skunk, to earn the extra game point in ACC play. Other times, it means pressing a bit harder to win that double bet when playing that $5/$10 game during the breaks. In any situation, there are definite strategies that you can implement that will improve your chances of picking up that large margin of victory.

Two Things to Consider When Evaluating the Situation

Do I Need the Skunk?

There are a few situations where you will need a skunk. In grass roots play, if you're going into your 9th game and you have 9 points, you need a skunk in order to earn grass roots points. This is the classic example of needing a skunk. Another situation that comes up is coming to the end of the qualifying round of a tournament, and needing one good game to have a chance. For example, in a 20 game qualifying round, 25 points is typically right around the bubble. If you're at 22 points, you need to play for the skunk, 24 points just won't be good enough. If I was at 23 points, I would not necessarily try to play for the skunk, as the increased variance you add will not be worth the 26/12 potential.

How Good is my Opponent?

Obviously, this comes into play in every match you're going to play. However, when playing for a skunk, you're going to be increasing your variance, and optimal play is going to take a back seat. In addition, if you know your opponent is out of the running for qualifying, use that to your advantage; whether they like to admit it or not, most players will tend to lose focus if they're not playing for anything in the last match of qualifying.

How do You Win the Skunk?

Win the Cut

Simply put, this is going to be a huge determining factor in your ability to go for a skunk. While the person who wins the cut only has a slight edge in winning the game, they will score 50% more skunks than the pone. Of course, you have absolutely no control over this; skunks were never meant to be easy to get.

If you're the pone to start, frankly, you're going to have to get lucky. You have to negate your opponent's 8 point positional edge, and cut down another 5-6 points after that to put them into skunk range, while maintaining a full positional hole ahead. You're going to play full blown offense, and hope your opponent becomes a ballerina.

If you're the dealer, then things become a bit more realistic. If you can score an extra two points per deal while holding your opponent to the average, you will be pushing the threshold of a skunk. That corresponds to 18 points as dealer, and 12 points as non-dealer. That would put the score at 108-88 after 7 hands. If your opponent has anything below average, you'll have room to trade pegging points to get you to the end.

Exploit Position Whenever You Can, Even to Your Own Detriment.

First things first, know the positional skunk holes as well as you know the positional holes. Assuming the positional holes are 18, 44, 70, 96, 121, the skunk positional holes are 12, 38, 64, and 90 (the last one's obvious). If your opponent is short of the 64 hole on his deal, you will have greater than a 50% chance of having two more hands (deal/crib) before your opponent makes it across the line, and more than likely three (deal/crib/pone). When playing for the skunk, the skunk positional holes are as important as the standard positional holes, if not moreso.

Play Recklessly... Almost

You're going to have to take some wild risks to make those two extra points per hand. Be very aware of your opponents tendencies, but try to grab those points if you can. I tend to pair to start even more than I usually do (which is quite frequent), and I always plan for stealing 4 on the end when I'm the dealer, even at my detriment. On the flipside, I generally try and stay away from runs when I'm playing for a skunk, because I don't want to trade points, for the most part. Obviously, your mileage may vary if your opponent starts drawing 19s.

Get Lucky

There's no getting around it, you're going to need luck, and plenty of it. If getting a skunk was that easy, you'd see a much higher conversion rate. This season, I'm averaging a skunk once every 14 games. There are plenty of games where I could play against a face-up opponent, and still not get that elusive 31 point win.

In addition, you're likely to see a higher variance, from playing more reckless. This means you might lose more games than you might otherwise. Just remember, winning two points is the same as losing in this situation. If winning two points will make a difference, then don't change your playing style for the extra point, it simply isn't worth it. Many times you'll win as well, without getting the skunk, and all that work will have been for naught. However, for those rare times where you squeak out a 14 point hand on 4th street to pull out that 3rd point, and end up being low qualifier, it'll make all those tries worth it.