How would you handle this situation ?

[Sombracier]

Hello friends,

I wish to share a situation I encounter lastly, according to the joined screenshot.

4 tokens left.
I decided to skip and mark early the 4m from north hand, fearing the issue that west might discard 3g, then north might discard 4m genuinly, then west would discard his 5r if ever i hint his last 4m

Both others players thought i rushed this play after west trashed his 5w. I seemed the best at the time as 1-2-3m layered finesse would have been nearly impossible to meet.

From South point of view, does my decision seemed legit, or would yuo have played otherwise, and why ?

[Blacktango]

Hello, thanks for sharing.

I would have 100% tried to answer the clue and then bomb my W5 as the left player.
My thoughts would be :
- Can this clue be a save ? No, because M4 is not unique, so it's a play clue.
- Is the clued M4 playable ? No, so some cards have to be played.
- Can I see these cards in finesse position in the hands of other players (except the clue giver)? No, so I have them in finesse position.
- Let's play M1, M2, M3 to make this M4 playable! (Note that this is not a layered but a long self-finesse, because you are playing more than one missing card, and only these cards.)

Now the more interesting part is how to deal with your situation? Because, you're right, it gets pretty dangerous.

In this case, I would have waited for another turn, hoping for a lucky draw from the left player (e.g. W1, B2, R3...).
Then you will just save the M4 next turn, by splashing it with a color clue.
Also, maybe the north player will draw a playable card, so the left player will clue next turn, and you will have enough time to save.

If that doesn't happen, and when I don't have a safe way to deal with DD (double discard), I used to trigger a bomb as a last resort.
For example, clue Y to the left player. Sure, they will bomb by trying to play the Y4. No problem, this is why bombs are made for.

Imagine the same situation but with the left player's G3 in front of the W5 (i.e. his card in finesse position is not critical).
So your teammates have both M4s in chop position.

L player: G3 W5 Y4 R5 M4
N player: Bk3 R1 B2 W3 M4
You can then clue B to N player. L player will bomb his G3 in an attempt to play a missing B1, and the M4 is now saved by the splash in N player.

[Blacktango]

I think there is a convention which could have saved you in this situation:

"If you want to give a finesse by touching only the card on chop, you MUST use a color clue and not a number clue, if you can."

Then, if you don't, it is a double discard situation, and the left player won't bomb.
Note that maybe the North player will bomb instead, because they doesn't know if you had the choice between color and number.

Anyway, from what I see, this convention is not widely used on BGA.

[Sombracier]

Thanks for your comment,

Sure, the bombing (yellow hint) was playable i didn't think about it at the time.
Hoping an ideal playable card is risky.

Both of these options are valid alternatives, yet also perfectible.

[NCAAbbUmpire2021]

There is nothing more fun in Hanabi than giving a multi-play clue. For example, a player clues me blue 2 and they have two playables ones on left and blue 2 in middle of their hand after them, I can gentleman discard and get them 3 free plays without using a token. Imagine if west did have m1/2/3 in order on left...you give that 4 clue and watch the magic happen.

the other easy solution is to not double discard. If someone discards (north discards m4) and you immediately save 4 to west, west should not discard. They should clue (even if empty). Since you just saved the # that was last discarded, they may not have had a chance to team up and save two cards (bc North was not aware it was coming). This approach also helps the team in the rare event you have a triple save

[Romain672]

Note that the clue count is high here, and your game got a pretty unlucky start, so the chance for one of you to draw a useful 1 is pretty high.
Even if you got a double chop of m4, just discarding and letting the team clue something has a pretty low risk to lose.
So I would ignore that problem for now.

Now, for a more general answer, let's assume 3 players, else east can help, just either taking a risk or creating a bomb is my usual answer. Planning to clue yellow to west look pretty safe if you was in a good shape to win. (And if west pay attention, that clue is too weird to be y1/m1, since you discarded instead of clueing it. So as west, if there was any good other interpretation, if there was any normal clue to give, and if not playing that y1 has no risk to make north bomb a critical card in their finesse position, I would not play.) But that start to be pretty situationnal.

[springiest]

from B's perspective, m4 is not a critical card, therefore it is not a card that can be saved. so a clue to m4 has to be a Play Clue. if i were B, i would blind-play my slot4 as a 4 Charm. or, if ur group does not play with that convention, i would assume i had `m1 m2 m3 X X` and blind-play slot1.

with that said, let us look at the more interesting part of the post - how to deal with such a situation? usually there are two options.
1. hope that C draws some playable card (with only two cards played the chances are quite high) so that B can clue it next turn. if this happens, u will have two turns to save both of B's cards.
2. after B discards g3, u can do a Bomb Chop Move! if u clue yellow to B, they will bomb y4 as a playable y1/m1. if the team is fully trusting, then B will know that u must have been in a very dire situation to intentionally make them bomb a card. that must mean they have very important (likely critical) cards to the right of y4. therefore B can Chop Move all of those cards for the rest of the game.

[springiest]

not really important to the question, but a small nitpick - the clue to m4 would not be a Layered Finesse but rather a Triple Finesse for m1+m2+m3.
a Layered Finesse is when u try to play a particular card but end up playing an unrelated card first, so then u play ur slot2 to find the originally promised card. when multiple cards are finessed, the correct term is Double Finesse (or, in this case, Triple Finesse).