Hanabi convention list

[LSF]

Simple and short Hanabi convention list:

TL;DR wel, sorry

Legend: P – Popularity; U – usability; E – Efficiency; R- Risk (5 means no risk, 0 “you die”) player 1 – the players that gives the cue, player 2 – the next one, ect.

“The number 5” (P5;U5;E5;R5) number 1-4 and color cue means the card is to play, 5 cue means don`t discard.

“play left discard right” (P5;U5;E5;R4) If two cards are cued with same cue, the left one is to play. When you discard, choose the card from your right.

“fatal discard” (P intuitive among good players; U2;E4;R5) if you get a cue of low number or color with all cards from it played, your most right card is fatal to discard (a card with the same number and color is already discarded). You should note all discarded cards, wait until you see all but one of their “buddies” and play your marked card WITHOUT new cues.

“fatal discard 2” (P intuitive among good players; U2;E1;R1) You get 2 cards cued, you play the newest and ... BOOM , you get a red token. This is warning not to discard the second. Don`t play it right away either. Use this convention as last resort only, by obvious reasons.

“good/save discard” (P intuitive among good players; U4;E4;R4) player 1 and 2 see a card in player`s 3 hand, that can be marked to play. If player 1 cues it, than player to have save discard. If player 1 chooses to discard, player 2 can cue it, but should not discard.

“finesse” (P2* favorite , lets increase it; U0 to 2 increases with players number;E5+;R5) Player 1 sees the newest card in players 2 hand can be cued to play, he sees also a card in others player and, that can be player after the first one. He cues the second. Player 2 sees the “wrong” cue and plays her newest card.

"finesse through color" (P2; U0 to 2 increases with players number; E5; R4) if the finessed player has a cued card of the same color as the finessing cue, this is the finessed card (the one she have to play) not the newest.

"advanced/indirect finesse" (P2* favorite , lets increase it; U0 to 2+ increases with players number;E5+;R5) It is not necessary Player 2 to be the one holding the finessed card. After a finessing cue is given, everyone watches the newest cards of the other players, the one who doesn`t see the finessed card hold it. Don`t cross 2 indirect finesses at once, confusion is certain.

"double finesse" (P1; U0-;E10+;R5) the newest cards of two players can be played one after another, cue the third card that will follow them. You may play 1000 games without a situation to play this. I played it once, lucky me

"bluff/pseudo finesse" (P1;U2 to 4;E5+;R2) example, the board has green 1 and red 2, player 2 has green 2 as newest card, player 3 has red 4. Player 1 give cue for the player`s 3 red card. (note in the simple version the cue has to be the color, not the number). Player 2 sees finesse and plays his newest card, expecting to be red 3. Player 3 sees the player 2 played his newest card "without cue" so he deduces he has red 4. He waits patiently for the red3 to come in play. This convention is one of the BEST in terms of both usability and efficiency and will not backfire if everyone is paying attention.

NОТЕ: you can use all finesse conventions in the same time, like an indirect double pseudo finesse through color (P1;U small but reasonable; E off the chart; R5 if everyone knows what and why and how is doing it)

"reverse finesse" (P1; U1;E4;R3) is a finesse, where the finessed card is in a player who plays after the cued card. Important here is that the player who got the cue must see all copies (both of them) of the finessed card, therefor he know he can`t play the cued card yet. Looks odd, but this is actually very simple finesse, because everyone know what is happaning at the moment of the cue. The cue have to be color, you can`t bluff in reverse.

“the bomb” (P0,U 3 to 4 handsize matters; E4; R1) If 2 or more cards a cued with the same cue, left is to play, right is the bomb. After the “to play” card is played (not necessary right after the cue) a “bomb round” is played. If the player with bomb card gets another cue, the cued card is to play and bomb isn`t, else the bomb is to play (sometimes it will misfire, it is ok). Give second cue on the bomb only if card has high number and will be played eventually or you have 2 misses already.

“the bomb easy mode” (P0,U 2 to 3 handsize matters; E4; R4) same as the original, just convention only apply for color cues and not for numbers. I actually recommend this convention, it trades usability for reliability by adding flexibility (how this sounds, hah .

"the corners" (P1; U1-; E5; R5+) a relaxed version of "the bomb", a particular case actually, a color cue of the newest and oldest card means both are for play, first the newest. It is pretty save, you will use number cue for the newest if the oldest is not suitable, you can even try this if the other player doesn`t know the convention, nothing bad can happen.

"keep the color cue, discard the number cue" (P1; U4; E3; R3) Players like to store cued cards, but when a hand gets "overcued" the whole team loses flexibility. This rule is nice solution and also guides your teammates when and to give "multycues" and witch. They should know your discarding style at the beginning of the game.

"information shift" (P0 "i invented it";U5?;E??;R0--"you are very very dead") You have a hand without any cues. You get a cue. You play the cued card. Now you draw new card and have a hand without cues again. If you play this convention, cue on the first card (oldest better) mean your second card is to play, cue on the second mean your third card is to play ... cue on the fourth card means your first card is play.This way players stock cued cards in their hands and some may became useful. But there is price, you don`t know how important is to play the marked card, it will be harder to make decisions in the last moves (convention off when there are 4 or less cards in the draw deck is good improvement, but makes the convention overcomplicated), you can`t use "bluff" convention with this one.

PLEASE NOTE, YOU NEED TO AGREE WITH YOUR FELLOWS WITCH CONVENTIONS YOU WILL USE BEFORE THE GAME. Only the first 2 may be popular enough without discussion.

[sparr]

Talking about using conventions before/during games is table talk. It's cheating.

Some of the things on your list are not conventions. Mostly the ones you've labeled as "intuitive". If two players can both figure it out without talking to each other outside of the game clues, then it's not a convention, it's a deduction.

[malachi]

Talking about using conventions before/during games is table talk. It's cheating.

Some of the things on your list are not conventions. Mostly the ones you've labeled as "intuitive". If two players can both figure it out without talking to each other outside of the game clues, then it's not a convention, it's a deduction.

Then I don't use any conventions at all when I play...

I wonder about your view that talking about conventions is cheating. If it is something you could figure out by watching my play, why bother wasting a game or more just so you can figure out what I am doing?

[LSF]

When I first played this game, the other players were using the first 2 conventions in the list. I picked up with those conventions in the course of the game, by watching what other players do, without table talk. But those are still conventions. If you take an action with intend to pass information other than the cue itself, you are using convention whenever or not you have discussed this before the game or your partner deduced it right. Most of the most powerful conventions not only in Hanaby are born at the actual game via the "in game" communication and the creativity of the players.

The set of convention a team uses represent their strategy to solve a particular problem. Comparing different convention sets is a mathematical and philosophical challenge, and quite a fun (imho)

Discussing conventions or anything like during game a definitely cheating (you can declare a training game and do whatever you want), but I think discussing convention and strategy before the game is not only within the rules, it is creativity exercise, social experience and quite a fun.

My experience with contract bridge showed me, that the more sophisticated conventions players use the less they relay on (and develop) their own judgment and creativity. So I advise new players to use only the first 2 convention in the list, they are needed to be "in the game" because everyone uses them and still they leave plenty of space for taking decisions and learning how actually to play the game.

But why I write about other conventions, you may ask. Wel, it is fun, at first place. Hanaby game consist of 50 cards, 25 needs to be played for the FULL VICTORY, 3 must be kept in each of the 5 players, this leaves 10 cards can be discarded for blue tokens. You start wit 8 and will get 4 more by playing "5" so you have 22 blue token to clue 25 cards, protect "5" and other fatal discards and organize the final plays. You need a loooots of luck to do this withoud advanced conventions, and trust me, the feeling when you see all those 5s next to each other is wort it.

[sparr]

The feeling when I see a 25 point game without conventions or table talk is worth even more.

Let me be more explicit:

Look at a replay of a single game, without names attached to the players, up to a point in the middle of the game. Determine what the correct play is at that point, given only the information seen in the clues and plays of that game. Now you're playing a deduction game.

There's definitely a meta-game to be had in comparing different hanabi clue/play conventions, much as there are thorough discussions comparing different bridge bidding conventions. I'd probably enjoy playing that meta-game, if someone organized it. "Let's play 20 games with convention X, 20 with convention Y, and 20 with convention Z, and compare the outcomes". There are definitely pre-announced conventions that will produce MUCH higher average scores than pure logical deductive play. And that is why doing so, in the regular game, is cheating.

PS: One convention that I want to try is "top player only gives play clues, bottom player only gives discard clues, and the left-or-right ordering of those clues is based on the last clue/play of the middle player(s)". I think some version of that would be quite productive.

[tchobello]

Well, Hanabi is on BGA for several weeks now and there are new conventions quite each week !

The PLAY left DISCARD right is no cheating ; it's logical.
when you are clued on two or more cards at the same time, the clue is played because the newest card is interesting, most of the time.
You play your newest card, which appears on the left here and discard your oldest, useless if never clued, which is sliding to the right, round after round.

When new players are told, play LEFT discard RIGHT, it's a reminder of how the game has been implemented here.

I'm not sure you can compare that to Bridge conventions.
When you say 1 Heart, it gives many informations about your hand (Honours, Hearts, Distribution...)

For instance, Finesse/Bluff doesn't work that way.
If the player after you is clued with Red on a 3Red and there's only the 1Red on the table, you have to do something !
Finesse/Bluff is an extension of the play left discard right and it's wise you play your newest card then.
If the 2Red appears, it's a Finesse

Of course, it's not a 100% rule as a card can be clued in order to keep it.

Good players don't need lots of conventions as Hanabi is mainly a logical game.
They prefer to play cards rather than trying to use the brand new convention and give the best clue ever !
Just remember that you need to play cards if you want to match the perfect score !

[beri]

Playing left every time without giving it a little more thought just makes no sense.
I wish players learnt from the situations they encounter and realized this.

[Fishwick]

One which I don't seem to see listed, and I'm not really sure is a convention people use but seems logical (if a bit rare):

Similar to the '5s convention';If you are given a clue to a higher number than is playable e.g. 3 when the board is at most ones, or 4 when the board is at most twos, and only a single card of the same number has been discarded, your card is the key card (last one left). The only exception is when you and the clue giver both know that the 'gap' card will be played before your turn.

[beri]

This convention list is terrible. Terrible. Oh my gosh, terrible.
Not only does it tell players they should apply these tricks without even caring to know why they exist (which makes no sense) and regardless of the situation (which makes less than no sense - situation is everything in Hanabi), but it also contains some totally absurd and counterproductive conventions.

There is so much more to Hanabi than just using (bad) tricks like a robot.

[derscheid]

This convention list is terrible. Terrible. Oh my gosh, terrible.
Not only does it tell players they should apply these tricks without even caring to know why they exist (which makes no sense) and regardless of the situation (which makes less than no sense - situation is everything in Hanabi), but it also contains some totally absurd and counterproductive conventions.

There is so much more to Hanabi than just using (bad) tricks like a robot.

This is a terrible post. Oh my gosh, terrible.

Not only does it criticize the list of conventions, without even attempting to point out which ones are bad, or why, it makes no attempt to produce any counter-list of ANY good suggestions. It also uses some totally counter-productive, argumentative tones.

There is so much more to posting than just making (bad) posts like an ad hominem.