sparr wrote:
No. You play your NEWEST card [that you don't have conflicting information about], because that's a logical and deducible difference between the cards. Coincidentally, in the middle of a game of Hanabi on BGW, that happens to be your leftmost card. But on the first turn, there is absolutely nothing that differentiates your four cards. Playing based on deal order has no basis in deduction. It's a convention. People plan to use it ahead of time, to convey additional outside-the-game information with their clues.
Those same people use this convention even when it overrides more meaningful clues. I usually discover I'm playing with these people when I give a clue that has obvious meaning without this convention, but they go right ahead and play the left card anyway, much to my dismay.
The only convention is to set your newest card on your left. Therefore, you can consider your leftmost card as the newest, even at the beginning.
There is a page full of conventions but it's most of the time a need to put names on logical clues.
I agree with that some players now play Hanabi just for giving the best clue or the best finesse...and forget to play cards.
You will see more finesse at the beginning because there are few informations to deal with.
When you need to deal with discard pile, lack of clues, you need to forget a little all those 'brilliant' conventions.
Expert players score heavily because Hanabi is a matter of logical, deduction and more over, timing.
Finesse / Bluff occurs 2-3 times in a game and there is no cheating there.