Is it a trash bluff or something else, what would you respond ?

[Malo77]

Hello
Here is a situation.

Player 1 gives Y clue to player 3, showing one MC card.
What would you respond as player 2 ? and why ?

P1: XX XX XX XX XX
P2: XX 3X 5X 2X XB
P3: XX XX XX XX (2)M

(there are some 2s and 3s in the discard pile)

[Travis Hall]

Depends. There’s important context missing. Was the 5 in my hand when any of the colour clues that touched my rightmost card were given? (So that requires three new draws into the hand since the last colour clue, which is a lot with only eight cards played. This game is going badly.)

If the 5 was in hand when any colour clue was given, then it is not 5m, I have to believe that C cannot see 5m, and thus if I play my multi, C will play their multi as 5m. So it must be trash bluff, and I have to play my blind card to tell C that.

On the other hand, if I don’t have not-multi on the 5, things get more complicated. In that case, either C can see 5m in my hand, in which case the clue marks known trash; or C cannot see 5m in my hand, in which case I have to respond as trash bluff. Really, I’m forced to guess.

I don’t like guessing. I would look for additional context. What is C’s chop, and do we need to preserve it by telling C to discard the trash immediately? Do I have a token, and can we afford to use it? Does C hold another 2? Any 5? What colour was C’s card marked before the yellow clue?

The safest approach would be to clue 2 or 5, as long as they don’t touch any other card. Either of these would tell C clearly to discard the multi. (5 works because my card should be 4m by Good Touch, so any non-5 multi should be trash.)

If I can’t clue 2 or 5, I think I would probably play my blind card.

But honestly, if the position isn’t desperate, this isn’t a clue that A should give in the first place. There will almost certainly be better opportunities to clean up that trash.

[Romain672]

Yeah additional context would be nice. But by default, I would assume as Bob to have m4+m5.
If no context, play slot 5 then slot 3.
If neg blue on 5, play slot 5 then slot 1.
If context for neg m4, play slot 1 then slot 3.
If context for something else, look for context for the yellow clue be known trash on P3 hand.
If context for negative m5 in P3's hand, play m4 on P2's hand (slot 5 by default, slot 1 else).
If no context for that, m2 is going to bomb, and it look like some of the previous point is wrong. So try to see what's the source of the missunderstanding is.

[Malo77]

Some more context:

for P2/Bob the blue clue was given to him before the 5 clue, so we have no indication about the 5 color, the 2 was nor blue nor mc.
It looks more like the guessing scenario you describe @Travis

P3 chop is 2G, the M card was seen as Blue befor Y clue was given.

in P2 pov, the P3 mc card looks like a trash card so a bluff trash

in P1/P3 pov the P3 mc card looks like a known trash card (to discard, as P2 has both 4mc and 5mc)

The blue card is by deduction a 4B or 4M and can be safley played by P2.

Maybe a 2 clue instead of a Y clue would have been better to avoid confusion ? and to mark 2mc (before it was seen as blue) for discard and keep 2g for later ?

@Romain672 I am unsure why you assume P2/Bob has 4MC and 5MC by default ? as you received not any color clue on 5 before.

[Blacktango]

IMO M finesses triggering a prompt play should always clue a color matching the marked card (if it’s possible without collateral cards).
So in such case, if the clue is Y and not B, I would probably play left most as P2/Bob, but this still promise a M5 to P3/Cathy.

[Romain672]

@Romain672 I am unsure why you assume P2/Bob has 4MC and 5MC by default ? as you received not any color clue on 5 before.

It's the simplest explanation (for me).

You didn't wrote anything about P1 hand, but on this case, P2 hand is full of stuff. If someone should fix, it's P2 and not P1, especially at 3 players imo.
So that clue mean that P1 really want P2 to do something imo. At least two actions play/trash, but even two seem close for me. But if you add the confusing part of the clue, I don't think it's enough anymore. So I still like my m4+m5 assumption.

[and that answer is really different if P1 got hints that his chop/hand look useful to save. Like per example if P3 discarded instead of clueing a play clue in P2's hand in slot 2 some turns earlier]

[But it's the problem with Hanabi... You try to ask a simple question, and I gave you my answer not assuming context. If you add that context, there can be lots of factors which can change my answer.
Many times, when I give a clue, I assume no context. If now the clue is weird but got normal meaning, I try to think if the context is enough confusing for him to take the normal meaning. If the clue is weird and require context to get the right explanation, I try to check how strong the context is.
But the main point is to got a normal meaning not complicated to have a solid base in my opinion. Which was my answer.]

IMO M finesses triggering a prompt play should always clue a color matching the marked card (if it’s possible without collateral cards).
So in such case, if the clue is Y and not B, I would probably play left most as P2/Bob, but this still promise a M5 to P3/Cathy.

Yeah right, my answer is different if blue is available as a fix too.

[Malo77]

IMO M finesses triggering a prompt play should always clue a color matching the marked card (if it’s possible without collateral cards).
So in such case, if the clue is Y and not B, I would probably play left most as P2/Bob, but this still promise a M5 to P3/Cathy.

As P3 5ths slot seems blue then receives the Y clue and turns MC ... and P3 sees M4 and M5 in P2 hands .. i do not understand what you mean? maybee my explaination is somewhat confusing ?

[Blacktango]

Well, I didn’t understand from your explanations that the 5th slot of P3 was B before the Y clue, nor that P2 had M4/M5
I would have used this picture in such case:

téléchargement.png (21.63 KiB) Viewed 570 times

Then it should look like a long trash finesse from P2’s pov, meaning they have all the missing M.
The benefit of the clue is to give the M5 + neg the B marked card of P3, which is good enough imo.

[Travis Hall]

for P2/Bob the blue clue was given to him before the 5 clue, so we have no indication about the 5 color, the 2 was nor blue nor mc.

Wrong piece of context. The question is not “Was the 5 marked 5 before the blue clue?”; it is “Was the card now marked 5 in the hand when the blue clue was given?” It’s not the order of the clues that matters, but whether the card was drawn before the blue clue.

[Malo77]

for P2/Bob the blue clue was given to him before the 5 clue, so we have no indication about the 5 color, the 2 was nor blue nor mc.

“Was the card now marked 5 in the hand when the blue clue was given?”

In short: No, the 5 was drawn after. The 2 was drawn before the blue clue.