What can you say during a game?

[Romain672]

Hi,
so from the rules:

An important rule of The Gang is that you are not allowed to freely discuss the cards in your hand.
You are not allowed to show, say, or hint which cards you have in your hand to the other players.

Additionally, if you know something about another player’s hand only because you know your own hand, you also cannot disclose that information.
There is, however, an opportunity for communication in the form of chips.
Pay attention to who takes which chip in each round and how the chips change among you.

So can you:
1) ask in chat for two players to swap?
2) tell in chat you think that two players could be wrongly placed
3) tell in chat you think that X have a pair of 10
4) tell in chat that since there is two pairs on the table, someone with a pocket pair could be lower
5) tell a card you saw previously from a positive card and for a scan that Y player have the '4 of heart'

What are you thoughs on that? Thanks.

[kostinen]

The rules are very ambiguous.

I would say that 4/ is OK, unless you have a pocket pair and you are the player concerned by the fall.
I would say that the 5/ is not OK, because you talk about a card you had. It could be OK (?) only if you don't mention that you saw this card in your hand.

As for the others, I don’t have a clear-cut opinion based on the rules.
However, I would argue that as little communication as possible is preferable. It seems to me that the spirit of the game is to communicate solely through the tokens. So I would not authorise any communication in an official competition, apart from special deliberations

[Suoivax]

The way we play it in person is that everyone can discuss what they think another person has, but the person in question is not allowed to comment or signal at all.

to be fair, we play quite casually, with non-poker players sprinkled into the mix.

[FSKFSK]

This is not a serious hardcore game. If you were playing in The Gang World Championships, chat should be disabled. For casual games, I don't sweat it. I don't say anything unless someone else does.

Sometimes, it's OK to call out plays that make zero sense. I.e., there is no possible hand someone has that fits what they did.

[Tuut Tuut tis Luut]

Hi,
so from the rules:

An important rule of The Gang is that you are not allowed to freely discuss the cards in your hand.
You are not allowed to show, say, or hint which cards you have in your hand to the other players.

Additionally, if you know something about another player’s hand only because you know your own hand, you also cannot disclose that information.
There is, however, an opportunity for communication in the form of chips.
Pay attention to who takes which chip in each round and how the chips change among you.

So can you:
1) ask in chat for two players to swap?
2) tell in chat you think that two players could be wrongly placed
3) tell in chat you think that X have a pair of 10
4) tell in chat that since there is two pairs on the table, someone with a pocket pair could be lower
5) tell a card you saw previously from a positive card and for a scan that Y player have the '4 of heart'

What are you thoughs on that? Thanks.

Openly available information is ok. As per the rules, So notifying others of potential combinations currently possibly is allowed.

With this, saying that player A went up at that card so likely has at least a pair of 10s, is also allowed.

So relaying public info is ok. But I would draw the line at saying what you think should happen with the chips, based on that info.
That's what the chip distribution is for.

Even if you're not revealing hidden info, trying to steer certain actions can easily still reveal some info about your hand.
And if discussing other player's actions. As with your 2.those players can often not reply to you without breaking the rules. And through that even a refusal to reply (to avoid breaking the rules) can still relay info.

But mainly. I've found that too much discussion about what should or shouldn't happen often ends up hurting more than it helps. You deduce information based on chip actions. But when people start doubting and changing their behavior because of discussion. You can't trust your usual deductions anymore.

I've had many hands go off the rails because of too much talk. Even though we were perfectly on track before the discussions changed our course.

Obviously it's a coop game in the end, and any play style you wish to use is valid. And especially with newer players who are learning. Extra discussion is often helpful.

[FSKFSK]

One thing I do find necessary: Reminding people in chat about powers and hazards.