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Hi, what are your thoughts on delaying finesse?
We recently disagreed with an experienced master player about it.

Here are some situations with my opinion about them. Please don't hesitate to discuss them.

Case 1a:
The team isn't very experienced yet and doesn't play with bluffs or layereds.

- Alice gives the Y finesse



Is Bob allowed to give the G finesse?
IMO, yes he can. He knows that he has the Y1 in finesse position and that Carole is waiting for it.
But he gives her another play, and even a finesse, which is useful to save tokens.

Case 1b:
Same as 1a, but the team plays with bluffs

This time, Bob shouldn't give the G a finesse, but answer immediately, since he doesn't know what his leftmost card is (it could even be a G1).
He has to trust Alice, who gave the Y clue even when he had the opportunity to bluff. (For example, she could have waited a turn to let Bob give the G finesse first).

Case 2a:
The team doesn't play with layereds.

- Alice gives the Y finesse (leaving 2 tokens)
- Bob plays his known R1



Is Carole allowed to make played the G1 (by cluing Alice, with a finesse or a bluff, for example)?
IMO, yes she can. She knows that she has the Y1 in finesse position and that David is waiting for it.
But she is giving him another play, like a finesse or a bluff, which is useful to save tokens/cards.

Case 2b:
Same as 2a, but the team is playing with layereds.

Carole knows she has the missing Y1, but the Y clue may be a layered, so she might have a few more cards and even a G1 in finesse position.
Bob hasn't clued the G finesse, which would have forced her to play because two players would have been waiting for her cards.
IMO, she is allowed to give David another play (e.g. a G finesse), because it is very unlikely that she holds the G1, and it gives more flexibility to the team.

Case 2c:
Same as 2b, but Alice has used the last token, so Bob can't clue.
This is a very rare situation, so it is difficult to say whether or not it is worth allowing Carole to delay a possible layered answer here.

Case 2d:
Same as 2b, but Bob can't give the G finesse, because it can't be clued directly, nor being extracted yet.
This is a very rare situation, so it is difficult to say whether or not it is worth allowing Carole to delay a possible layered answer here.

To avoid exceptions and keep things simple, I think it is better to allow Carole to delay in 2c and 2d too.

What do you think of it?

(EDIT: I changed the case 2 to give a known playable to Bob and I removed Eve from the equation, to enforce the fact that Alice doesn't know her own hand)

Here is hgroup's position: https://hanabi.github.io/level-15/#a-ta ... ing-bluffs

1a: since you assume the team doesn't play with bluffs (I would instead add a player between Alice & Bob), it's deferring a finesse to perform a finesse.
Hgroup said yes, I said yes.

1b: Alice defer a Bluff to perform a finesse.
Hgroup said 'Sometimes, use sparingly'.
And I fully agree. It's usually bad because you delay an unknown card for you, so you want most players around the table to agree that from your pov, that clue was extremely good to give. It's usually to make a card in chop who would be discarded playable (or to make your next player play, which is likely to discard to keep their chop). Another problem is that you could be duplicate the play, even if it could be unlikely or impossible.

2a:
Carole is deferring a finesse to perform a finesse, so it's like 1a.

2b:
Here is another section of hgroup: https://hanabi.github.io/level-5/#urgen ... s-possible
The thing is, layered finesses, are pretty rare, and usually another player can give an important clue. Per example, if there is a playable card in your next player chop, and your previous player discarded instead of clueing it, that should mean the team isn't interested by that card (right now).
But as hgroup's convention said, if you can clue a finesse with it, you get two cards of value, so even if there is a small chance for you to duplicate the card, if you got no reason to think you are layered for it, you should do it.

2c & 2d:
Same than 2b, but you are much more likely to not find reasons for being layered for a potential duplicate. You could maybe clue a single playable card in chop.

I like the H-group recommendation.
Most of the time you should trust Alice's clue timing, but sometimes you may think there is better to do.

If everyone knows that there is no bluff, then you can give a play clue and delay your answer, and no one will bomb trying to answer the initial clue instead of you.

i see Romain already linked the table i was going to point towards - i think that covers (and agrees with) most of the examples u provided. i agree with ur reasoning in all of the examples, and indeed i would say that 1b is the only situation in which bob shouldnt defer (exactly because he may be playing a g1 himself). however, this is only true if the g1 is not clued directly - it must be Finessed or Bluffed!
in 2c, u mentioned alice used the last clue to clue donald's y2, but then bob discarded over playing his known r1. in addition to getting donald's g1, i would say that this discard should trigger some alarmbells in our head - bob just did a Scream Discard, so we probably have y3 or some critical card on chop.

Sorry about the 2c. I changed my example to provide a playable R1 to bob, so the discard part is not relevant anymore.