Page 1 of 2

Physical vs. online hanabi

Posted: 26 March 2026, 21:55
by ratgirl1200
Does anybody play the physical board game Hanabi? And do you use the same rules / conventions as online? And do you have the discards out like on bga?

I recently got into hanabi on bga, but before I had only played the physical game and I find it so different. I would move the cards around in my hand in order to remember clues. After getting into hanabi on bga I now tried the actual physical game again, and it was so strange.

Re: Physical vs. online hanabi

Posted: 27 March 2026, 08:37
by Eton2343
I have hanabi game and we play it exactly like here, same rules, same discard pile, it is a bit harder because we have to memorise every clue, but there is app hanabi tracker if someone have trouble with tracking clues.

Re: Physical vs. online hanabi

Posted: 29 March 2026, 05:06
by Juanghi
The real deal is harder, you must use your memory a lot more with old clues or get some help from colors and dices.

Besides that we use the same conventions like finesse.

Re: Physical vs. online hanabi

Posted: 21 April 2026, 23:14
by Candlelit
I play irl and similar but I move some cards together or put some lower than others to remember cards or color

Re: Physical vs. online hanabi

Posted: 09 May 2026, 16:25
by dralkyr
We played online Hanabi first, then played physical Hanabi several times, then went back to online. The online clue tracking really makes the game, since otherwise memory issues make or break the game.

Re: Physical vs. online hanabi

Posted: 09 May 2026, 21:39
by elamate
Not moving your card have some benifit: if slot 3 is red and you play discard oldest then the card older than slot3 red is not red card.
If i play card game i flip the clued card. If i play with the delux domino i just rotate them.

If other player first game i go without convention. If they want play again i can introduce them one of the convention if they want. Witch convention i explain depends on the player count, how the first game was played and my mood what convention i want to play

The memory part not that bad, if you play enough online,its easier to see what less experince player would do so i dont need spend too much brain power there and can remember the few clue that i have. Also the good clue that you can give is way more limited, so not need to think too much, Also if i the physical copy i dont try to remember all the negative information

Re: Physical vs. online hanabi

Posted: 10 May 2026, 08:51
by Eragem
Yes we do, and we remove the memory aspect on physical game. Other players tend to now what clue they give and on which card (as they can move) so we can ask again what are your clues

Re: Physical vs. online hanabi

Posted: 20 May 2026, 22:25
by Mars4ever
I play the game live in the same way as here, sliding the cards from left to righe. And to keep track of the clues I use the paper clips: colored for colors and black to indicate the number, by putting it in the corresponding position on the top of the card (left for 1, center for 3 and right for 5).

But here there's something wrong: the multicolor is supposed to receive every color clue and not be a sixt one!

Re: Physical vs. online hanabi

Posted: 18 June 2026, 20:40
by BusError
I've played in person ~100 times or so, with different groups who come from BGA or HG or neither. Sometimes I try to teach the simplest subset of the BGA conventions, sometimes we make up something new. My personal favorite game with some family we use chop focus for all clues, with saves for all clues. That is, every number or color could be left-play, chop-play or chop-save. It's super fun, especially when you have brain-rot from using BGA conventions and want to try to challenge your muscle memory.

When we play in person, we keep the discards in a haphazardly organized pile to the side, so they are all visible. We sometimes keep physical notes in front of our cards as to what's been touched (but never what's been inferred). The set I have comes with stands for the cards, so it's easy to shuffle little tokens around.

The games are way slower, though! :-)

Re: Physical vs. online hanabi

Posted: 18 June 2026, 20:50
by Magistone
I bought some of little peacock (different colors of them) to stick on top of the cards, for numbers I wrote numbers on them. It s almost like the online version. Easier because you can explain convention in easier way just by talking before, during or after the game (I played with peaple that doesn’t know how to play Hanabi)