Playable cards on chop

[Keso77]

Hi there Hanabi people

So we have the following situation:

Board R1, G1, Y2, B1, W1
Discard: nothing of value

Alice hand xxxxx
Bob hand (knows nothing about his hand): R3, Y2, X, X, Y3

Alice wants to give a play clue to Bob on his Y3, what does Alice do.

Most players here always play left first, no matter the position of the cards. So hinting either 3 or Yellow will result in a missfire. There is no critical card to save, so either wouldn't look like a save.

According to h-group convention, any clue touching Y3 in this case, would be chop focused and according to them either clue would result in a play clue focused on the chop, making Bob play Y3, but do people on BGA follow that?

Or should we just sacrifice Y3 and hope for the next one?

[Romain672]

So you got four clues possible: red, yellow, 2, and 3.

You usually want the previous player (Cathy) to clue 2 or yellow to Bob. That way, you as Alice will be able to know for sure that clue don't make sense, and correct the clue with yellow, 2 (3 could be better but is more confusing).

Now for your situation, losing y3 look a bad option.
Clueing yellow will make y2 missfire, but will save y3 for sure which look great. Then on Bob's pov, after the y2 missplay happen, he know his chop card is useful. It can be y3, y4, or y5. y5 should be fastly out of consideration after Bob discard a trash card or he saw that his second chop don't require a save. Using a bomb for y4 look pretty bad. So y3 left is likely. Enough for me to play again if the game goes nicely.

If you clue yellow, you got the upside as Bob to wonder why the clue wasn't done before. There can be lots of explanations but if Bob find none good, then he could try to give another clue just in case there is a problem on his hand.

Note if all 1s has been played, that assume you can't clue 1 to Bob.

"According to h-group convention, any clue touching Y3 in this case, would be chop focused and according to them either clue would result in a play clue focused on the chop, making Bob play Y3, but do people on BGA follow that?" => Hgroup don't have any problem of extracting cards since their clue can be focus on weird spots way more easily.
3 would be the clue on hgroup, which make y3 playable (since it can't be a play) and make r3 saved.

[Ankeszu]

For me, the previous turns would matter in understanding any clue (yellow or 3). And player count, I think it was not specified, I automatically assumed 2p.

Generally - could the 3y be clued earlier? How 2y was put on the table, how long ago? Did Bob's hand changed recently (play or discard), and if so, what was played/discarded? How many clue tokens are availible? Context matters. This type of situation is very suspicious to me due to potential cluing play not as earliest as possible, and/or playing 2y to the board despite seeing it would be useful to play it from another hand to get 3y. Notice that on Bob hand before 3r draw, his cards included 2y at newest position (gentleman's discard availible) and 3y (+potential yellow trash 1 on last card), so yellow clue seems good.

I wouldn't necessarly read 3 clue as play left. Yellow clue even less likely "play left" as it affects not newest card. As a chop clue I can be focused on saving cards, even if their copies weren't discarded, but the other cards on hand were totally uninteresting. But that depends on the context too.

[Keso77]

Interesting discussion.
In other words, if i find my self in a similar position, then we have probably played less then optimal, i we have put ourself in a tricky position that must of the times could be avoided.

I seem to find myself there, for different reasons, y2 can be changed to y4, with reverse ordered cards, and have problems getting them extracted. I guess in 3+ games we could collectively fix it with 2 consecutive clues.

What else is there?

[Vandaley]

In my group, we have a convention for this.

If you clue 3 here, it will light up the chop 3 and newest 3, but if there are no danger 3s as you say, my group would play from the right. The rationale is that we would have clued color to play left and even if the other 3 was further down, then in that case we would wait until there is no 3 in chop to clue a left play.

This has worked really well for us.


In summary, our convention is a number clue that lights up the chop is default a save, but if there is nothing to save then it is a request to play.

[Travis Hall]

A lot of top players here will recognise some form of chop focus, at least in limited situations. Very few people on BGA will read a yellow clue in the described situation as chop-focussed, but a 3 clue will get 3y played.

But be aware that that’s among very highly-rated players. There’s a lot of masters who haven’t heard of it.

Personally, I prefer to clue and read a number clue touching chop as a chop-focussed if there’s no unique card of the same number and there being nothing time-sensitive (like finesse) about the clue (other than the chop itself, of course).

[Romain672]

And I will insist, with yellow clue, i didn't advise to play rightmost, but to delay if you got something good to do elsewhere.

[Sombracier]

That may be really confusing for most of people.

I learnt to take my time on non ritical things. I will usually let it go to waste (especially that the y4 and y5 are currently still expected in the deck) and focus the few tokens on more valuable plays.

I focus on hard saves or playable cards only, unless lots of tokens and obvious "early saves" situations, often in the early game stage.

[Travis Hall]

I will usually let it go to waste (especially that the y4 and y5 are currently still expected in the deck) and focus the few tokens on more valuable plays.

These priorities shift as players increase in skill. A better eye for opportunities, and more advanced techniques (to both provide more opportunities, and more efficient opportunities) brings teams to a point where less games are lost due to inefficiency or lack of tokens, and more games are lost due to losing an early card that turns out, later, to be important. So players reach a point where they are looking for ways to prevent discard of these difficult-to-clue cards.

And by that point players are willing to deal with high complexity to achieve further gains.

(Remember, if the duplicate for a lost 3 is on the bottom, you’re getting no more than 23/28.)