Low comm vs High comm

[Romain672]

Hello,
Some years later, I would like to hear opinions on low comm.

Let's said you are certain you will comm pink. The instinctive play is comming high (ie you wanna win tricks on that color / you got something important on that color / you don't have highest 2 pinks cards / that specific high card is important / you want to or it could be good to get lead / you have a long pink suit...).
When are you comming low instead? Feel free to separate all my cases.

On the other side, you got situations where you got p6 task and p268 in hand. Or you got no green and would like to instint green by comming low pink. Or want to show to someone else you have a low pink, or have lots of high pinks and a low pink.

Thanks

[icharper]

The obvious case to me is when I need to win a pink card with a submarine. I don't want to take the lead and I want it to be clear when my last pink goes out of play.

[Romain672]

Again a long answer post sorry, feel free to skip it D:

The obvious case to me is when I need to win a pink card with a submarine. I don't want to take the lead and I want it to be clear when my last pink goes out of play.

On that situation (assuming you got 2 pinks for simplicity), you don't want the lead since you want to discard pinks to sub them.

If someone in another color give you one discard, you want to discard your highest pink to not have the lead later on.

If someone plays pink, then I think that most of the time, you want to play your highest pink to have your last few turns with your low pink. You could want instead to play your low pink to not get lead, and forces the team to give you one discard, but that depend if the holder of p7 got two (30%) or three or more (62%), and you can't know it in advance, so by default I think you should play your high first in most cases.
I think though that if you got per example no yellow, then by comm the highest pink, and play the lowest pink in that pink trick, you in purpose put yourself in more difficulties to insist on the fact you want something else.

But the main point of that situation is to comm the card you think you will play last. Which mean usually low.


I would love to use that information to said if I got 2 or 3 pinks though. Since we agree that the default should be low (so default=2), but we should agree too that with 2 pinks the comm shouldn't matter, while with 3 you really want to play your two others pinks first, we got a contradiction.

There is another main point too, if you got 3+ pinks, you should highly consider comm another color instead. So if you still comm pink, you either got 2+ cards in every color, or got no cards in one color.
If you have 2+ cards in every color, then you want someone else to take the game in their hand, in most games, you got no subs, so want someone to play two subs but the only way to ask on my knowledge is to wait for one green trick, then comm your solo green, which should mean you got 2+ cards in every color, and since you didn't asked pink, unless someone commed p7 solo, you should have 3 pinks. But while I think it's strong, all players would not get it. And when you add complexity of others tasks above, that can be messy extremely fast.
If you have no card in one color, one possibility would be to comm low green, to tell you got no blue or no yellow. Or you could just comm pink, which should mean you got 2 pinks, but once that's known false, people should start assuming you got no card in one color, I think. Again though, complexity of others tasks can make that sentence wrong.

All of that to said that maybe the choice here doesn't matter, since if you comm pink you should have 2, or it would be the case after one trick on every color.
Would love to hear opinions on all that.

[Bentre]

• Low comm can mean you have the card you are trying to win.
  E.g. if you have g236 and need to win the g3, you should comm low so people go over you. If you don’t comm, people will think you have the g7, and won’t play the g8 or g9. If you comm g6, people will think you want to win with the g6, and won’t play the g7 g8 or g9. Comm low to ensure they play their high cards on the first trick.
• Comming the last card you intend to play gives more info
  If you have a g689 to win a trick with a value of 22/23, and the greens are split 2-2-2-3, you will be able to lead the last green and everyone can dump whatever you need onto it. But, if the greens are split 2-2-3-3, the last green trick will be your g6 and someone else’s g4. If you commed g6 low, everyone knows the g4 will end up on the trick, and can do 22/23 math accordingly. This can also be very relevant for tasks like “i will win a trick with two greens and two yellows”, where people need to know whether to put one or two yellows onto the trick.
  Or for something like winning a trick with a total value <12, this can help people know how long to hold on to their low cards. When you play the commed low card, that’s the signal for everyone to fire off their low card for the task. If someone only has one low card, they need to know whether you’re still clearing the suit, or whether it’s time to play their only 2.
• Comming the card opposite a ‘protected’/’dangerous’ card
  If you have p247 and someone needs to win the p7 with a sub, or you have b369 and someone needs to win the b9, you can comm low so they know the suit is safe to play. Once your commed card gets played, that means you have a lone p7.