Travis Hall wrote: ↑15 December 2023, 02:44
Ant Stewart wrote: ↑14 December 2023, 14:56
Not discarding in round 1 (at least in base game) is quite an important assumption.
Suppose, the player after you has r1 in the finesse position. And the 3rd player has say r5 on chop, followed by g2.
I would start the game with a play clue on greens, bluffing g2 to save the 2, knowing that they won't discard the 5 on chop because discards in round 1 are forbidden.
Then consider advising players to favour giving a good clue over discarding in the first round. I would still advise players to actually think about what they should be doing, not relying on over-generalised rules that may not apply in the current context.
Because if I’m second player, and first player does not clue me or give a clue asking me for a response, and I see neither a valid play clue nor a valid save to give, I’m going to discard. If there’s precisely one valid clue available to give, and you don’t want me to discard, let me clue it.
I’ll repeat that, because it’s an approach that is much more broadly applicable than “never discard in the first round”: If there’s precisely one valid clue available to give, and you don’t want me to discard, let me clue it.
I think this issue is that there isn't enough information in the first round to determine if it is better to throw a clue, or discard.
Some example scenarios.
1: I am playing first, followed by Bob, followed by you in 3 players, 6th colour, difficult.
You have r5, multi3, multi4 in your hand. It is impossible to save all of that in time. With no discards first round though, 2 could be saved at the start and then next round, the other one.
2: Same orientation. You have r5, g2 on chop. Bob has r1 on the finesse position. I want to be able to clue you greens to bluff out the 1, saving the valuable 2, knowing that you won't discard your 5 on chop.
3: This time you are P2 and Bob is last. Bob has r1 on chop say and g1 somewhere else in the deck. You have y2 on chop, and r2 elsewhere.
If I let you clue Bob, you will likely clue Bob both their 1s, and then will play g1 first, after which you would discard y2.
Instead I would rather skip you and clue r1 directly, knowing that you won't discard on round 1. Then when Bob plays r1, I can then give you a 2s clue next round, getting you to play r2 and saving the other.
4: Same orientation. You have a 5 on chop, and r2 somewhere else, Bob has all 3 r1s, one of which is on finesse. The cleanest way to get these our would be to clue you r2, to reverse it, this avoids creating lies on the 1s if you can't bluff in my hand. However, it relies on knowing you won't discard the 5 on chop.
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Conversely the disadvantages of never discarding in round one.
1. You potentially waste a clue.
2. It slows down the time taken to get a new potentially useful card into you hand.
I would argue that the reason why you would have to waste a clue is because there is nothing useful you can clue instead. And if the two other players have nother useful, either all 3 players have nothing useful so you'll be back at 8 tokens soon anyway, or you have the useful cards and discarding risks loosing them.
As for slowing the game down, I think being slow for a third of a round, to potentially allow for 2s to be saved is worth it in my opinion.
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Personally I would far rather waste a clue and a turn, than loose a savable 2. Especially playing without flamboyants, if you are unlucky, that 2 could limit your score to 27 on the second move.
I agree that there are situations where there is nothing worth clueing, but I don't think you can identify those based on just 1 or 2 clues and what you can see, so across all games, I think that never discarding on round 1 would gain you more than it will loose.
