Gamehelphanabi

Hanabi is a cooperative game. Your goal, as a team, is to build a fabulous fireworks show. You have to put together 5 fireworks ( 1 white, 1 red, 1 blue, 1 yellow, 1 green), by making series rising in number (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) with the same coloured cards.

However, you cannot see your own cards; you can only see the cards of your team mates.

Also, communication (and non communication) between the players is essential to Hanabi.

You can only communication with your teammates when you give them a clue (see below).

No other communication is allowed.

Your final score is the total of the top cards on the five piles:

Final Score Ratings

Points	Overall impression
0-5	horrible, booed by the crowd...
6-10	mediocre, just a spattering of applause.
11-15	honourable, but will not be remembered for very long...
16-20	excellent, crowd pleasing.
21-24	amazing, will be remembered for a very long time!
25	legendary, everyone left speechless, stars in their eyes

Card distribution

• Each card has a colour and a number.

Normal difficulty (50 cards)

Red (r)
Yellow (y)
Green (g)
Blue (b)
White (w)

Multicolour cards

• There are three variants that add a 6th colour: the multicolour.
• There are three difficulties:

Tricky

• These cards get marked by a separate multicolour clue.

Tricky difficulty (+10 cards)

Multicolour (m)

Hard

• These cards get marked by a separate multicolour clue.

Hard difficulty (+5 cards)

Multi-colour (m)

Very Difficult

• These cards get marked by any colour clue.

Avalanche difficulty (+10 cards)

Multi-colour (m)

Setup

• 8 clue tokens.

# cards dealt to each player

# Players	2	3	4	5
# Cards (official rules)	5	5	4	4
# Cards (unofficial rules)	6	5	4	3

Game play

Players take turns to either:

• Give a clue
• Play a card, or
• Discard a card

Clue

• Possible when there is at least one clue token available.
• Clues indicate all cards of a certain colour, or all cards of a certain number.

  you may indicate no cards of a color or number on BGA (you have no 5s, or you have no reds)
  you may not indicate only a single card of the matching criteria if there is more than one

To do this:

1. The active player selects a card in another player's hand.
2. The active player selects a clue option.
3. One clue token is moved from 'available' to 'used'.

Play

1. The active player selects a card in their hand.
2. The active player selects the 'Play selected card' button.

• If the played card fits in any of the sequences, it is placed in the appropriate colour stack on the table.

• If the played card does not fit, it is placed in the discard pile and the team gets a misfire token.

3. A replacement card is drawn.

Discard

This is only possible when there are fewer than 8 clue tokens available.

1. The active player selects a card in their hand.
2. The active player selects the 'Discard selected card' button.
3. The discarded card is placed in the discard pile.
4. One clue token is moved from 'used' to 'available'.
5. A replacement card is drawn.

Game end

• The game can end in several ways:
• 1. All cards have been drawn from the deck. After this happens, everybody gets 1 more turn. The game ends with the score at the last turn.
• 2. Your team played all possible cards. In this case, the game ends immediately and you receive the maximum possible score.
• 3. Your team made three mistakes that caused misfires. In this case, you lose the game and get negative ten (-10) points.
• 4. Your team 'abandons' the game. Although discouraged, you receive zero (0) points.

Options

Black Powder

• Clues cannot be given for the colour black.
• Black cards must be played in reverse order, from 5 to 1.

Black Powder (+10 cards)

Black Powder (k)

Five Flamboyants

After playing the last card of a colour, randomly select one of the following bonuses for immediate use:

• Gain a clue token.
• Gain a clue token and recover a life.
• Give a clue regarding a colour.
• Give a clue regarding a number.
• Shuffle a discarded card into the deck.
• Play a discarded card, if possible.

Lingo

When you play with others, certain words are used to describe certain objects or situations. Here is a short list.

Marked

A card that is highlighted by a clue.

Unmarked

A card that is not clued.

chop

The oldest, unmarked card. The card that you have no information on and will chop from your hand.

draw

The newest, unmarked card. The card that you have no information on and was freshly drawn.

To bomb

A play that causes the third misfire-token. Sometimes called explosion

Unique

A card that has no copy (left) in the deck.

Double discard

When consecutive players have the same card on chop. A special problem, since, to each of the consecutive players, a number to chop does not look like a unique save.

Twin chop

2 consecutive players have the same card on chop. Same as Double discard

Double save

When a player has two consecutive unique cards, requiring consecutive save clues.

Strategy

A set of rules / guidelines / conventions on how to interpret actions by players (including spending of clue-tokens).

ELO rating

• If you are playing with ELO rating on, your ELO may be changed at the end of the game.
• Here is how it works:
• 1. Every player on the team is temporarily considered as having the average ELO rating of the team.
• 2. The system will generate a bot associated with the score your team has achieved (let’s call it Hanabot).
  • • Hanabot’s ELO rating depends on the variant you are playing (50 cards, 60 cards, 60 cards multicolour), the number of players on the team and, most importantly, your team's score.
  • • All Hanabot’s ELO ratings have been set by an experienced player, they are not random or simply proportional to the score/number of players.
• 3. Your team (actually your team's average ELO) will now compete against Hanabot.
  • • The system will calculate your team’s ELO gain/loss as though your team had tied with Hanabot.
  • • If your score is below 18 (50-card game) or below 21 (60-card game), Hanabot's ELO is always 1000.

• You can find all bots' ELO ratings here
• The 55-card variant (50 cards + 1 of each value in the sixth color) cannot be played with ELO rating on. (This is because this variant is highly dependent on draw and a team’s score may not always reflect the players’ skills.)
• If you achieve the perfect score and this should cost you ELO points, you will be considered as having beaten the bot associated with the score, so that you lose no ELO points.
• To be confirmed: I think the ELO-system has had an overhaul.

Cheating

• Players can cheat at Hanabi by:
  • 1. Sharing information via the chat user interface.
  • 2. Deliberately abandoning games.
• This is why ranking has been disabled for this game.

Conventions

• If you want to play "full information" style, meaning that you wait until you know both the colour and number of a card before you play it, you will likely be short on clue tokens in >99% of the decks.
• The logical conclusion is that you cannot play a full information style game and the team must agree on some sort of meta-information. The meta-information is coded in a convention.
• Many players have different kinds of conventions.
  • Note: not all conventions are added to the BGA list. Please respect the convention the table creator wants to play.
• When different players in the same team assign different meta-information to the same clue, the game becomes unplayable.
  • This is why there is an option to display the convention for the table.
  • See this forum post started by user Romain672.
• Ideally, all players adhere to the convention, to avoid miscommunication.
• Below, the meta-information of several conventions is explained.

Standard

• Players assume the following meta-information:
  • Every marked card will be playable at some point.

Number clue

• Cards with a number-clue on them must be saved to be played later on in the game
• Saved cards can be safely played when all "number-1" cards are played.
  • Saved cards are played from oldest to newest.

Colour clue

• The newest, previously unmarked card, is the next playable card in the sequence.
• The oldest, unmarked card is safe to discard.
  • If a player has a card that they are sure they will never be able to play, e.g. cards marked by a blue clue when the blue stack is already complete, these card must be discarded in priority.

Bad clues

• A clue that marks 0 new cards.
• A clue that tells a lie (i.e. does not conform to the meta-information above).
• A clue that marks unplayable or duplicate cards, unless it saves a card at the chop position that does not have another copy of the card in the deck or other players' hands.
  • e.g. Marking 4s in another hand if your hand could have a copy of that 4.
• Sometimes, a "bad" clue cannot be avoided.
  • e.g. Save a unique 3 using a number clue which also marks unplayable cards.
  • e.g. A colour clue from a flamboyant must be used and it is used to mark 0 new cards.
• When a lie has been told, it needs to be corrected.
• A correction clue can never mean "play", it can only mean "discard".

Standard convention example 1

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• It's Amy's turn, and Bob knows his chop card is    .
• Amy will give a red     clue to Bob.
• This will tell Bob that the newest card is the next playable in the sequence (so must be    ), and that the other red can be    ,    , or     (because it must be playable at some later point in the game).

Standard convention example 2

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• It is Amy's turn again, and Bob knows his oldest card is    , and his middle card is    .
• Amy will give a red     clue to Cat.
• This will tell Cat that her marked card is the next playable in the sequence (so must be    , because     is already marked).
• This will give Bob the meta-information that his saved red card, is    .
  • This particular move is sometimes called prompting, and is a common way to allow a card that is saved by colour to get played without re-cluing it.

Standard convention example 3

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• It is Amy's turn, and Bob knows his middle card is    .
• Amy will give a red     clue to Bob.
• This will tell Bob that his newest card is the next playable in the sequence (so must be    , because     is now visible with 100% information).

Finesse

• Finesse builds on the standard convention (making it a bit more complex).
• In the finesse convention, the timing of the clue gives you extra information.
• You can assume the following meta-information:
  • Every card that gets marked, will be playable at some point.
  • If the oldest, unmarked card gets marked with a number-clue, then the clue meant "save this/these card(s)". (It is custom to play saved cards from oldest to newest when appropriate.)
  • A clue that doesn't mark the oldest card, means that the newest, previously unmarked card, is the next playable card in the sequence.
  • The oldest, unmarked card is safe to discard unless that player is busy by having a "known" play.
    • Obviously, if a player has a card that they are sure they will never be able to play, for example a card on which is marked as blue when the blue and multicolor piles have already been completed, such card must be discarded in priority.
  • If a marked card gets discarded it means:
    • The copy of that card is already marked in someone else's hand, and the discarding player is the first to realize this; or
    • The copy of that card MUST be marked in a future clue (because a save-clue will be given that will mark the copy card as collateral).

Special interpretation for play-clues

• When receiving a clue for the "next playable card in the sequence", the linking cards are not limited to already marked cards (like in standard convention).
• The newest, unmarked cards in every player's hand should be considered as well.

Example of finesse

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• Amy gives a blue     to Cat.
• This gives the information that     is the next playable card in the sequence, and that Bob is either not allowed to give a blue     clue, or has something to play.
• Since Bob has no marked cards, he was not blocked from giving a blue     clue, so he must have something to play.
• This something, must be the missing link (   , to enable    ) that makes     the next playable card.
• Since there is no logical (marked) card that could be    , Bob must assume his newest, unmarked card is     and blind-plays this card.

Example of reversed finesse

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• Amy gives a blue     clue to Bob.
• This gives the information that     is the next playable card in the sequence.
• Bob sees that the newest, unmarked card in Cat's hand is of the same colour (blue) and playable now. Bob concludes it is a finesse, with the players in reversed order, so his blue card must be    .

Example of a bluff

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• Amy gives a blue     clue to Cat.
• This gives the information that     is the next playable card in the sequence, and that Bob is either not allowed to give a blue     clue, or has something to play.
• Since Bob has no marked cards, he was not blocked from giving a blue     clue, so he must have something to play.
• This something, must be the missing link (   , to enable    ) that makes     the next playable card.
• Since there is no logical (marked) card that could be    , Bob must assume his newest, unmarked card is     and blind-plays this card.
• However, at this point the "lie" is revealed (because the colour of the played card does not match the colour of the finesse-clue).
• The blind-played card is not    , but    . Cat, up to this point, was thinking she had    .
• Bob's blind-play gives Cat extra information: her blue card is in fact    .

Clues you should avoid giving (bad clues)

• As a special remark: don't mark useless, or duplicate cards. So if you have a saved 4, you are forbidden from marking 4s, unless you are sure you are not holding a copy of that

Meaning of skipping a player / stealing clues in Finesse convention

• There are different approaches among finesse-convention-players about who should clue whom. So this section will be devided into sub-sections. The order does not say anything about which approach is more common on BGA. There are a lot of players following each idea.
• As of now, there is no way of saying which approach is "right" or "better". Of course it is important for success, that in a game, the group of players follows the same idea. If they get mixed, it will most likely result in bombs. If that happens, it does not mean, the other player is "bad" - it merely means, they follow a different idea. So you can only try to find a common ground for the next game or play with another group next time.
• The text within the sections are written by people who follow the idea.

a) Skipping / stealing should be avoided

• If more than 1 person are able to give the same clue, then the last possible person should give that clue.
• In finesse convention skipping (Alice clues Cat, instead of Bob; then Bob is skipped) means either:
  • 1. The Bob is forbidden from giving that clue; or
  • 2. The Bob has something to play.

b) Skipping / stealing is for discard-management

This style is one way of applying finesse convention. Since the primary assumption is that your CHOP is safe to discard, it might still be that said card is a nice-to-have like a non-unique 2 or 3 that is not yet playable. without knowing your chop card, it is good to handle each-other's chop situation by preferably letting players with definitely useless chop-cards discard rather than discarding your own unknown card. Skipping/stealing is a term that is often used for a situation, where giving a clue is not left for the last possible player to do. e.g. Alice saves a card on chop of Cat, potentially leaving Bob without a known play or a useful/necessary clue to give. Skipping players is a useful move to give other players the time to play / discard / clue more cards.

When getting skipped without having a play or useful option to clue, it most likely means that your chop card is not very useful. These are valid reasons for skipping you:

• Your chop-card is trash (a copy of the card is already played/marked)
• Your chop-card is redundant: Another copy of it is on another player's (or your own) hand as well, so discarding it is no loss (or it has low priority like a high number when it's very early in the game).
• You might still have something nice on chop, but the player sitting before already received information that their chop might be something very good (from earlier discard-behaviour like NOT being skipped over by the player sitting before them on earlier turns) and they are reluctant to discard for that reason.
• The clue given is a play-clue for a card that might be in your hand so you couldn't know whether you want the other card or not. The player skipping you knows that you want it and therefore takes away the decision.

This approach sacrifices some saving-clue-tokens option (that might be achieved on a stricter dogma about who should clue whom) in order to be able to keep nice cards in the game for longer and discard useless cards instead and by that often get those cards played before they would be discarded.

• This convention is better for players, who play efficient enough to rarely struggle with clue-shortness and can therefore afford being more careful about not losing first copies.
• If a group often struggles with clue-shortness then skipping-dogma (as proposed by other conventions) might as well improve their overall results. If the problem for not achieving 30 points usually isn't clue-shortness but getting bottom-decked (or heavily delayed from losing earlier a card that could be played now), then results can get better with this discard-management convention.

Planning ahead is a vital aspect of the game. By carefully deciding on who to let clue and whom to skip, it is often possible to

• avoid twin-chops before they become an issue
• avoid not having enough clue tokens to save all necessary cards
• get the discard you were waiting for (when a player has 2 copies of the same playable card and you want them to discard before clueing it)

Others conventions

• For others conventions, see the previous link: this forum post

Strategy

• In addition to the convention(s), there is also some strategy to the game.
• You should not confuse strategy with convention! Strategy is team vs deck; convention is communication within the team.
• A simple example of strategy is saving 2s in 2-player games.
  • Using number-2-clue to communicate that those cards need to be saved, is a convention.

Examples

• More advanced players will try to avoid losing as many "first" (non-unique) cards as possible.
• It's a good strategy to keep good cards in the game as long as possible - even if they are not yet playable.
  • The other copy of that card might be far down the draw pile.
• Trying to mark at least 12 cards with the first 8 clue-tokens.
  • This gives 99% chance of always having enough tokens in the game.
• Not using the last two clue-tokens for "single plays".
  • This avoids running out of clue-tokens in times when you need to save critical cards.