Not sure what I did wrong

[Gaen Suruga]

I am a new game player of this game. In a two-player game, I thought I tried my best to give play-clues to the opponent based on the guideline, but the game still failed. I could not quite understand my opponent. I thought maybe I missed some prompts. In the end I had to discard the only unmarked card. Could anyone please help me analyse my choices of this game? I appreciate all your help.

https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=737868004

[KP1024]

You both made a lot of mistakes, but that's how it goes in collaborative games like Hanabi. On the whole, you played all right, while your teammate was giving more nonsensical clues based on the conventions BGA Hanabi players use.
1. Players in 2-player like to give 2 clues early. You giving the 2 clue at the start would have avoided the blue 2 being misfired. Your 2 clue, once you gave it, could be considered a play clue for the other 2, since your teammate already knew the green 2 was playable.
2. Your teammate let the blue 1 slip through your hand. Twice.
3. If the newest card is clued, that means it's probably playable. Your teammate was cluing 5's early, when 5's of other colors were playable. Your misfire of red 5 was not your fault. And technically, you could have thought the other 5's were playable. Early save clues can be good, but only if the number being clued has no way of being playable. That is, a 5 clue is fine only if there are no 4's in play at all. (This advice is only for 2-player.)
4. Your teammate let the yellow 2 slip through your hand without being clued.
5. There was also some discarding of clued cards that might have had a chance of being playable, but I couldn't quite tell if I was missing out on some info (when your teammate discarded the other green card, and when you discarded the red 4).

[aesche]

Hello

You are open to learn, that‘s the most important thing. Then, being new, it‘s totally ok that you still have a long way to go.

I‘d advise these general things as important for going forward:
1. Give play clues as fast as possible. Even if you don‘t know the colours of your 1s, clue his 1s by colour. If you have the same, he‘ll chop his.

2. Give save clues as late as possible (when the unique card is on chop. Exceptions only as explained by KP). Anything else will be bombed.

3. Play before chop.

I hope that helps. Have fun!

[Gaen Suruga]

You both made a lot of mistakes, but that's how it goes in collaborative games like Hanabi. On the whole, you played all right, while your teammate was giving more nonsensical clues based on the conventions BGA Hanabi players use.
1. Players in 2-player like to give 2 clues early. You giving the 2 clue at the start would have avoided the blue 2 being misfired. Your 2 clue, once you gave it, could be considered a play clue for the other 2, since your teammate already knew the green 2 was playable.
2. Your teammate let the blue 1 slip through your hand. Twice.
3. If the newest card is clued, that means it's probably playable. Your teammate was cluing 5's early, when 5's of other colors were playable. Your misfire of red 5 was not your fault. And technically, you could have thought the other 5's were playable. Early save clues can be good, but only if the number being clued has no way of being playable. That is, a 5 clue is fine only if there are no 4's in play at all. (This advice is only for 2-player.)
4. Your teammate let the yellow 2 slip through your hand without being clued.
5. There was also some discarding of clued cards that might have had a chance of being playable, but I couldn't quite tell if I was missing out on some info (when your teammate discarded the other green card, and when you discarded the red 4).

Thank you very much for your explanation and help. I would like to introduce my actions from my perspective.

For the 2 in tip 1, I read the guideline in Github which suggests that the only 2 in any color in the table should be number-clued for saving if it is on the chop place (The rightmost place). Since the green 2 is clued before and can also be used, I clued 2 to convey both using green 2 and saving the other unknown 2.

For the red 4 to be discarded, I witnessed at that time that the hanabi had exploded twice, which indicated that the next explosion would fail the game. In this case I doubted if my teammate gave me a wrong clue as the previous 5 at the beginning of cards, and I planned to wait for my teammate to discard useless cards and let me give clues.

Those are what I thought during the game. Thank you again for your help and suggestions.

[Gaen Suruga]

Hello

You are open to learn, that‘s the most important thing. Then, being new, it‘s totally ok that you still have a long way to go.

I‘d advise these general things as important for going forward:
1. Give play clues as fast as possible. Even if you don‘t know the colours of your 1s, clue his 1s by colour. If you have the same, he‘ll chop his.

2. Give save clues as late as possible (when the unique card is on chop. Exceptions only as explained by KP). Anything else will be bombed.

3. Play before chop.

I hope that helps. Have fun!

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I will practice using the tips and also learn from other gameplays.

[aesche]

For the 2 in tip 1, I read the guideline in Github which suggests that the only 2 in any color in the table should be number-clued for saving if it is on the chop place (The rightmost place). Since the green 2 is clued before and can also be used, I clued 2 to convey both using green 2 and saving the other unknown 2.

Fair, but then you need to do it in the very first turn (or, along my former post, after cluing his 1s by colour, before you play any of your 1s). He already knows that his green is the two, as you clued green after playing the 1. And technically, if he has playables, there is no chop, and he can fairly understand the 2 clue as showing him yellow 2. But that‘s all pretty detailed/advanced, and I doubt he‘s there either. Your 2 clue at the end of the game, marking newest + second newest, when a 2 was playable, was way more misleading, and makes a bomb for 99% of cases.

For the red 4 to be discarded, I witnessed at that time that the hanabi had exploded twice, which indicated that the next explosion would fail the game. In this case I doubted if my teammate gave me a wrong clue as the previous 5 at the beginning of cards, and I planned to wait for my teammate to discard useless cards and let me give clues.

It‘s dangerous to alter your game and abandon conventions due to earlier mistakes, but after his 5 clued too early, I understand why you didnt play it after he clued the 4. No excuse anymore though after he also clued it as red (see my 3rd point above).

One more general advice, try to avoid rubbish being side-clued. Marking green 1 next to playable green 4 in this game. No clue why he dumped it, most others would have bombed it, and fairly so, assuming it‘s green 5. Let him dump blue 4 first, and then clue green 4 as 4.

[Gaen Suruga]

For the 2 in tip 1, I read the guideline in Github which suggests that the only 2 in any color in the table should be number-clued for saving if it is on the chop place (The rightmost place). Since the green 2 is clued before and can also be used, I clued 2 to convey both using green 2 and saving the other unknown 2.

Fair, but then you need to do it in the very first turn (or, along my former post, after cluing his 1s by colour, before you play any of your 1s). He already knows that his green is the two, as you clued green after playing the 1. And technically, if he has playables, there is no chop, and he can fairly understand the 2 clue as showing him yellow 2. But that‘s all pretty detailed/advanced, and I doubt he‘s there either. Your 2 clue at the end of the game, marking newest + second newest, when a 2 was playable, was way more misleading, and makes a bomb for 99% of cases.

For the red 4 to be discarded, I witnessed at that time that the hanabi had exploded twice, which indicated that the next explosion would fail the game. In this case I doubted if my teammate gave me a wrong clue as the previous 5 at the beginning of cards, and I planned to wait for my teammate to discard useless cards and let me give clues.

It‘s dangerous to alter your game and abandon conventions due to earlier mistakes, but after his 5 clued too early, I understand why you didnt play it after he clued the 4. No excuse anymore though after he also clued it as red (see my 3rd point above).

One more general advice, try to avoid rubbish being side-clued. Marking green 1 next to playable green 4 in this game. No clue why he dumped it, most others would have bombed it, and fairly so, assuming it‘s green 5. Let him dump blue 4 first, and then clue green 4 as 4.

Thanks for your great help. I watched the record again.

My 2-clue at the end of the game was quite bad from my perspective now. At that time I planned to clue my teammate that the 2's should be saved. Now I find that the 2's were new cards and should not be save-clued. I forgot at that time that only the chop place 2 should be saved.

For my discarding the red other one after he clued the red 4, at that time I thought that there was only 1 clue left that could be used, and since the red 5 was discarded, then the other red card must be useless. I planned to discard the red unknown card first to save 1 clue before I played the known red 4, which at that moment I thought would help using more clues if he used up all clues.

Finally, for your last advice, I think it is quite useful. I will follow this and try to avoid marking useless cards.

Thank you again for your help and time.

[Gaen Suruga]

For the 2 in tip 1, I read the guideline in Github which suggests that the only 2 in any color in the table should be number-clued for saving if it is on the chop place (The rightmost place). Since the green 2 is clued before and can also be used, I clued 2 to convey both using green 2 and saving the other unknown 2.

Fair, but then you need to do it in the very first turn (or, along my former post, after cluing his 1s by colour, before you play any of your 1s). He already knows that his green is the two, as you clued green after playing the 1. And technically, if he has playables, there is no chop, and he can fairly understand the 2 clue as showing him yellow 2. But that‘s all pretty detailed/advanced, and I doubt he‘s there either. Your 2 clue at the end of the game, marking newest + second newest, when a 2 was playable, was way more misleading, and makes a bomb for 99% of cases.

For the red 4 to be discarded, I witnessed at that time that the hanabi had exploded twice, which indicated that the next explosion would fail the game. In this case I doubted if my teammate gave me a wrong clue as the previous 5 at the beginning of cards, and I planned to wait for my teammate to discard useless cards and let me give clues.

It‘s dangerous to alter your game and abandon conventions due to earlier mistakes, but after his 5 clued too early, I understand why you didnt play it after he clued the 4. No excuse anymore though after he also clued it as red (see my 3rd point above).

One more general advice, try to avoid rubbish being side-clued. Marking green 1 next to playable green 4 in this game. No clue why he dumped it, most others would have bombed it, and fairly so, assuming it‘s green 5. Let him dump blue 4 first, and then clue green 4 as 4.

I still have 2 questions to ask if you are willing to know.

My first question is that are players tend to think the number-clued '2' as play-clue, save-clue or both possible? I tried to clue the 2 on the chop place to avoid the case that the other same color 2 is at the end of the card deck, but I am afraid if players tend to think it as a play clue when there are different color 1's on the play area. I think the 2 is very important as I occurred cases that it was in the very end when we finally found the other 2 after we first discarded the first 2.

The second question is that in a two-player game, how can I avoid discarding a card that is just becoming the only card after my teammate discards the same card before my turn? I thought I could try to give clues rather than discard unmarked cards to give my teammate the time to mark the card that he discarded one turn before.

I appreciate your kind help and advice.

[aesche]

For my discarding the red other one after he clued the red 4, at that time I thought that there was only 1 clue left that could be used, and since the red 5 was discarded, then the other red card must be useless. I planned to discard the red unknown card first to save 1 clue before I played the known red 4, which at that moment I thought would help using more clues if he used up all clues.

Your assessment of the other red being useless has no flaw. But it violates „play before chop“. And, but that’s very advanced, doing that should be reserved to more serious situations than just „could help using more clues if he used up all clues“. Specifically, you can do that when you have no clue, but should save his chop immediately. In this situation, if you chop instead of play, your partner (if he plays well) will understand that he has to move his chop, and will discard the 2nd oldest unclued card instead of the oldest one.

[aesche]

My first question is that are players tend to think the number-clued '2' as play-clue, save-clue or both possible? I tried to clue the 2 on the chop place to avoid the case that the other same color 2 is at the end of the card deck, but I am afraid if players tend to think it as a play clue when there are different color 1's on the play area. I think the 2 is very important as I occurred cases that it was in the very end when we finally found the other 2 after we first discarded the first 2.

Yeah, generally, that‘s exactly why good players save the first 2s (and potentially also 3s of which the 1s are played already, and so on. If you save on chop only, most ppl will understand a 2 clue as save, even if there is no unique 2s but some playable 2s. Don‘t care about the ones that don‘t get that. But, along what we discussed before, you can reduce the risk by saving the 2s directly, instead of risk of losing them and only clue them after playing your 1s. Personally, I side-clue save as much as possible that will be useful eventually, as long as there is enough space in the hand.

The second question is that in a two-player game, how can I avoid discarding a card that is just becoming the only card after my teammate discards the same card before my turn? I thought I could try to give clues rather than discard unmarked cards to give my teammate the time to mark the card that he discarded one turn before.

That‘s also pretty advanced, but your thought is on spot: Double discard avoidance, by cluing instead of chopping right after a card still needed (and that you can’t rule out from having on your chop) was chopped. The important thing here is that your clue is not misleading (same rules as usual apply for saving - at least for the majority of regular BGA players). Do you already know that you also can give empty clues? You also can complete information on already marked cards, but only, again, if it‘s not misleading.