Play Better Hanabi

MJ Rodda

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 CONTENTS

Page
Introduction 3
Building your playing group 4
Memory aids 6
Using this guide 7
Managing your hand 8
Hint to play 11
Colour or Number 15
The playable half-pair 16
Chop cards and saves 18
The Lost Pair 23
Batch hints 26
Hinting twos 29
Discard hints 31
Deduction 33
Gambling 37
Discard signalling 41
Prompts, finesses, bluffs 43

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 INTRODUCTION

Hanabi is one of the most successful card games of recent years. It has sold millions of copies and has
won the prestigious Spiel Des Jahres Game of the year award. It is easy to see why it has been such a
success. It is simple – the rules can be taught in a matter of minutes. Many gamers appreciate its light,
quick gameplay, which makes it an ideal filler game. But that simplicity hides a surprising strategic
depth. A community of players has explored that depth, and over time strategies and conventions have
developed that allows a good team of players to achieve regular high scores, and occasionally even hit
the holy grail of Hanabi – twenty five points.

This guide has been developed over years of playing and is drawn from a combination of experience and
ideas from the community. It is by no means comprehensive – every game group will have its own
conventions and strategies, and there are hundreds of conventions available in Hanabi forums. Part of
the fun of playing is developing your own conventions and strategies. What this guide will give you is a
solid basis of good techniques that you can build on. It is aimed at players who have played a handful of
games and are just starting to see that Hanabi is a deeper game than it at first appears to be.

This guide does not guarantee a score of twenty-five in each game – that’s impossible! Twenty-fives are
rare, even for experienced players using good strategies. In most games, you will find that you simply
run out of time – someone draws that last card, and if you had just two more turns you would get a top
score. What it will allow you to do is get the consistent scores of twenty-three and twenty-four that will
open the door to those rare and triumphant twenty-fives.

This guide has been arranged broadly in order of difficulty. Read it in order, as some strategies rely on
previous strategies and will expect you to know them. Take it one chapter at a time, and make sure
everyone in the team understands the concepts before moving on.

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 BUILDING YOUR PLAYING GROUP

Getting Going

The first thing you need to do is set up a playing group. You may have been playing Hanabi in your local
gaming group, and sensed that there was a deeper game lurking beneath the breezy gameplay, but you
need to find people willing to go down the rabbit hole with you. This means getting everyone up to a
similar level of understanding and practicing frequently.

If you run a gaming group, then perhaps you can create an event just for Hanabi, and explain in the
event description that you are looking for players who are willing to commit some time to the project.
Or, if you go to a gaming night that you don’t run, perhaps you can ask the organiser to set up such an
event with you as the host. My first event was called Hanabi – Advanced Techniques Workshop, which I
ran as an event in my local gaming Meetup group. About a dozen people showed up, and I went through
some basic ideas. Later, we set up a message thread with just the people who were interested in
playing, then arranged regular games from there. We mostly play on Tabletop Simulator, which has an
excellent Hanabi implementation.

Alternatively, you can play online at places live Hanabi Live or on Boardgame Arena. Here you can join
games and learn on your own with groups of experienced players. Just bear in mind that these players
might have ideas that contradict this guide – which is not a problem, you will just need to be flexible in
how you learn the game. Personally, I had a lot more fun playing with people I knew from my local
games group than I did when I played online, but you might prefer the latter. This guide is aimed at a
group of players who are learning together, and so are all at roughly the same skill level.

Setting the Tone

If you have managed to gather a group of people who are keen to explore the deeper strategies of
Hanabi, well done! The next important step is setting the right tone for your games. You may have read
this guide and done further research of your own to bring to the table, but the other players probably
have not. You therefore have the role of teacher. And, as with anything that people are learning
(especially when learning it as a team), sometimes an idea is misunderstood the first time it is tried or
requires repetition before it is fully understood. The key message to get across is that this is absolutely
fine. Hanabi can feel stressful to some players, because of the fear of being perceived to have played the
wrong move. The key message to get across is that these mistakes are good things. Firstly, you will be
playing dozens of games together, so it does not matter at all if a game goes wrong because of an error
or a misunderstanding. Secondly, and more importantly, these mistakes are the best way to learn – far
better even than everyone at the table reading this guide. Mistakes are a golden opportunity to improve
your skill level.

Say, for example, one player incorrectly believes that they have a playable card, and they break a
firework (a ‘broken firework’ is one which cannot be completed). It is important that you stop the game
immediately and discuss what happened. Not because one or two players made a mistake, but because
you can collectively learn from that what has just happened. It is up to you to set the tone in this
situation. If you gloss over the error and do not analyse it for fear of upsetting someone, you will not
learn from it. Use positive language and encouragement when this happens (for example, say something

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like: “This is great! Let’s all work out what happened here so we can learn from it”). If someone feels like
they are being blamed for mistakes, they will probably leave the group.

If you can foster an atmosphere of learning from mistakes, then players are going to be more likely to
try ambitious plays (the ‘finesse’, for example). They key is to develop faith in your group. One of the
players in my group even coined the phrase The Game of Faith for Hanabi, and it is true. You must
develop faith in each other that you will eventually make good decisions. Whenever a mistake is made,
and that mistake is learned from, you are increasing the faith you will have in each other. This faith
works both ways – when you are giving and receiving a hint. You should have faith that a teammate has
given you a strong hint, and faith that a teammate will understand a strong hint you have given them. If
in either case this leads to a mistake, analysing that mistake will build that faith.

Open Hands and Semi-Open Hands

A good way to start is to play with an Open Hand, and then a Semi-Open hand.

An Open Hand is where all cards are visible to all players. Each player can see their own cards. As you
play, the table has an open discussion about each player’s thought processes of what they might do on
their turn: which player they might hint and what sort of hint they might give, or whether to play or
discard. You do not have to play a full game in this way, but it can be a useful way to start to calibrate
the group’s thinking.

A Semi-Open Hand is where you play normally. Each player cannot see their own cards. But on each
player’s turn, they can, if they wish, discuss what they are attempting with their play. This is useful after
a few games when you begin to introduce some advanced techniques, particularly the finesse. The
player giving the finesse hint can then describe the hint to the table (including the number and colour of
the cards involved) so that everyone can see how a finesse works. Or, if a player has attempted a finesse
and it has not been picked up by the player being finessed, a semi-open hand allows you to discuss it
immediately.

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 MEMORY AIDS

A key decision to make is whether to use memory aids. This will depend on whether you want the
memory challenge to be a part of the game. Memory aids allow you to move past the fog of forgotten
cards and get to the core of the game (although they do not help with ‘negative’ knowledge, i.e.
remembering what cards are not). I have played many games without memory aids, but they always end
up with people moving their cards about in their hands to try and remember things, or worse, asking the
table for reminders about what they know about their cards. If you are going to use this kind of partial,
messy memory assistance, you might as well go all the way and use memory aids. Memory aids also tell
other players what everyone knows about their hands, which is critical knowledge when giving hints. It
is worth noting that Hanabi played online would be impractical without memory aids, which are a part
of the interface. Since the vast majority of Hanabi games now take place online, using memory aids has
probably become the default way of playing. This guide is written on the assumption that memory aids
will be used.

Nonetheless, it is your group decision whether you want to play with memory aids. Maybe playing
without makes those high scores more satisfying!

Above are some examples of memory aids, clockwise from top left: Hanabi Deluxe with dice as memory
aids, Hanabi cards with small pegs as memory aids (available in stationers), Tabletop Simulator with
inbuilt memory aids, Boardgame Arena with inbuilt memory aids.

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 USING THIS GUIDE

The examples given in this guide will be for a three-player game, with a standard five colour deck. This is
the simplest way to represent most of the strategies of Hanabi, and they can be applied to other player
counts and variants with relatively minor tweaking.

This guide will introduce each new concept in the same format. First, it will show a representation of the
playing area, with cards represented in hands. Second, where appropriate, a second section to each
chapter showing how that concept could go wrong, and to look out for warning signs.

The below diagram shows how examples will be laid out in this guide. Play proceeds clockwise.

This is the hand of cards of ‘Player 2’, This is the hand of cards of ‘Player 3’,
whose turn follows your turn whose turn precedes your turn

This is the Stack of

completed fireworks

These markers
indicate what each
player knows about
their hand

These markers The orange

indicate the highlighting indicates
remaining Clock which player’s turn it
tokens is

The cards with a This is your hand of cards. Note that you are
red border are in playing right to left from your perspective, and
the player’s Chop Player 2 and Player 3 are playing from right to left
from their perspective and left to right from your
perspective. As long as all players are playing in
the same direction, it does not matter which
7 direction you play in
 MANAGING YOUR HAND

Probably the single most effective and important technique you can bring to your games is good hand
management. This is the ordering of your hand in to three sections:

1. Known Cards
2. Unknown Cards
3. The Chop Card

The benefits of this are that every player’s play suddenly becomes much more consistent and
predictable. This in turn allows you to be more ambitious and efficient with your hints.

Each player should arrange their cards so that all the cards they know something about (their known
cards) are all on the right-hand side of their hand.

Each player should ONLY discard from the chop. This is the card on the far left of their hand.

New cards should be added to the right-hand side of the player’s unknown cards. This is the finesse card
– more on that later. This ensures that the unknown cards in a player’s hand are kept in age order –
newest on the right and oldest in the chop. This means that players are more likely to discard old – and
therefore less useful – cards. Note that whether you play right to left or left to right does not matter. As
long as all players do the same thing, you can play in either direction.

The cards circled in

red are the finesse The cards that the
cards, i.e. the newest player has some
unknown card in the knowledge of (the
player’s hand known cards) are
clustered to the right
of the player’s hand.
For the purposes of
hand management,
If new cards are cards are known
added to the cards whether you
finesse location, have partial or full
the chop will be information about
the oldest them
unknown card
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The below example is continued from the previous page. It is your turn, and you play the Red Two from
your hand on to the stack:

You then move your remaining known card (the Two) to the right, and draw a new card (highlighted
green) into your finesse position:

Note that if you do not have any information about your hand, the card on the extreme right is your
finesse card.

Note: Some online implementations of Hanabi do not allow in-hand cards to be moved. In this case,
the above hand management strategy will have to be adapted.

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Players must only discard from the chop. The chop card has two purposes:

1. It enables other players to manage your hand because your behaviour is predictable
2. It means you do not have to waste hints on cards you wish to discard – a discard hint is a wasted
hint, and wastes precious time (as discussed later in the Discard Hints section)

If players have knowledge discardable cards, those cards should be moved to the chop. In the example
below (continued from above), all three players have known cards that are no longer required for the
stack. These are moved to the chop, so they can be safely discarded:

Players with multiple

known discardable The cards circled in
cards should line red are the new
them up ready to go finesse cards after the
into the chop as hands are rearranged
cards are discarded

Players should only discard when there is no good clue to give.

Remember that each player cannot see what is in their chop. So, if it gets to their turn and they have not
received a hint about their chop, they will assume it is safe to discard it.

Remember: It is the rest of the table’s responsibility to ensure that a player does not discard a card
that is needed.

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 A SIMPLE CONVENTION – HINT TO PLAY

it is important be as efficient as possible with your hints. Think of hints as money, each with a value of
‘one’. You are ‘buying’ cards with hints, and ‘selling’ cards to get hints back. If you must spend two hints
to play a card – giving that card’s number and colour to the holder – that card is twice the price it should
be. Not only have you wasted a hint, but you have lost time. Time is a critical factor in Hanabi. Most
games end on a low score because you run out of time. One hint is the maximum you should ever be
spending on a card. Later in this guide we will be looking at techniques to get the price of a playable card
below one hint. But unless you have no choice (for example, if you need to save a card in the chop), you
should never be spending more than one hint per card.

The easiest and simplest convention you can implement is the hint to play. Given that each card has two
attributes – colour and number – the hint to play convention eliminates ambiguity. When hinting single
cards, players should only hint cards that are playable. That way, whether a player has received a
number or a colour hint on a single card, they know that they have a playable card. Most importantly,
this complies with the maximum of one hint per playable card rule.

In the below example, it is your turn, and you see an opportunity to hint the Player 2:

You see that this is a

playable Five. But
Player 2 has two
fives, so you must
use a colour hint.
You hint that this
card is Blue. Player 2
knows it is playable,
as you are using the
hint to play
convention

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Player 2 knows that
the hint to play
convention is being
used, so plays the
card (and gains a hint
for completing a
firework)

Player 2 then draws a

new card into the
finesse position

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Where it can go wrong

Using the hint to play convention and only discarding from the chop is an efficient way to play, but it can
cause problems. Below are some examples of where it can go wrong.

In this example, How will you save

imagine that the first the Green Four? If
Green Four has you hint it either a
already been number or a colour,
discarded. Therefore, Player 2 will assume
the only Green Four that it is playable.
in the game is in This will require a
Player 2’s chop. It is Save, which will be
your turn. covered later in this
guide

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In this example, Instead you hint
Player 2 has the Player 3’s playable
playable Red Four. Green Three. This
But it cannot be tells Player 2 that it is
directly hinted by safe to discard their
colour or number chop, which should
allow you to hint
Player 2’s Red Four
directly

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 COLOUR OR NUMBER?

When using the hint to play convention, sometimes you won’t have a choice whether you use a number
or colour hint. But when you do have a choice, often a colour hint is more useful and accurate.

In this example, you This is useful if Player 2

can either hint decides to do something
Yellow or Two, and other than immediately play
using the hint to play the card. For instance, they
convention, Player 2 might hint Player 3 that they
will know they have have three Fives. By the
a playable card. time they come to play the
However, it is more Yellow Two, the board state
accurate to hint the might have changed, and
colour. If you hint having full information from
the number, the card the colour hint could be
could be any one of important. As an additional
four Twos. If you hint benefit, Player 2 also now
the colour, they will knows that their Five is not
know they have the yellow, which will be critical
Yellow Two in the endgame

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 THE PLAYABLE HALF-PAIR

This is an extension of the Hint To Play convention. It refers to situations where a player has an unknown
playable card, but they also have partial information on another card, which shares its unknown
attribute with the playable card. Hinting both of these cards allows the playable card to be played (since
we are using the hint to play convention) and it completes the information of the second card.

In this example, Using the Playable

Player 2 has the Half Pair convention,
playable Red Four. you hint Player 2’s
But they also know Red pair
that they have a
Five, but they do not
know the colour

Player 2 now has

complete
information about
the Red Five, and
knows that the other
Red must be playable

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In this example, Using the Playable
Player 2 has the Half Pair convention,
playable Red Four. you hint Player 2’s
But they also know Fours
that they have a
Green, but they do
not know the
number

Player 2 now has

complete
information about
the Green Four, and
knows that the other
Four must be
playable

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 CHOP CARDS AND SAVES

As has been discussed, players should only discard from their chop, and if players are following the hand
management guidance described earlier, the chop card will always be either your oldest unknown card,
or a known card that is no longer required.

Although players should be cautious when discarding (hinting and playing are usually better), they
should nonetheless be positive, and not be afraid to discard. This is because it is not the responsibility of
the player to know if their chop card is safe to discard – they cannot see it! It is the responsibility of the
rest of the table to ensure that they will only be discarding something safe.

The Two, the Three, and the Four have two copies of each colour. In a perfect game you would play the
first of these cards that is dealt from the deck. This is because discarding a card that has not yet been
played makes a high score much more difficult, since it may be some time before that card appears
again and you will likely run out of time. However, sometimes you will be forced to discard an unplayed
card, and in those cases, some cards are safer to discard than others. The table below discusses each
number and whether the first one drawn can be discarded:

Numbers (refers to all colours) Can the first card drawn be discarded?

Do not discard.
There is only one Five, and Twos are critical – if you
discard a Two and the other one is at the bottom of the
deck, it does not matter how well you play, you won’t
get a high score (more on saving Twos later).

Try not to discard. You may be able to recover given

that you have two more chances to play the One, and
losing a Three is less damaging than losing a Two, but
you will have less chance of a high score.

The most discardable card. New players look at Fours

and see them as high value, and therefore a card that
must be saved, but this is an illusion. Saving the first
Four of a firework is good, but if you discard it, you will
still have a chance to build a firework as far as Three,
meaning there are only two cards needed to complete
it. There are other problems with prematurely saving
Fours, which will be discussed later.

In this section we will look at some techniques you can use to save a chop card if it is not immediately
playable.

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Saving Fives

Probably the simplest save is hinting a Five that is in a player’s chop. This is a case where it is worth
breaking the hint to play convention, since Fives are so important (never forget, or forget to remind the
table, that playing a Five buys you a hint back). Hinting Fives to save them is so common that it is
actually a good idea to hint their colour if it is a hint to play clue, as often a number clue on a Five can be
misread as a save, even if it is not in the chop. Care must be taken not to confuse saving a Five with a
finesse (covered later). Saving a Five works well with the playable half pair convention, since you may be
able to tell the player the Five’s colour later in the game if they have a playable card of the same colour.
Try not to save Fives when they are not in the chop – it is passive and there are usually better hints to
give.

In this example, you

hint Player 2’s Yellow
Five with a number
clue, so that they
save it from the chop

Player 2 rearranges
their hand. This hint
has the added
benefit that the
three cards now
heading for the chop
are all discardable

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Where it can go wrong

The biggest risk of delaying saving Fives until they have hit the chop is running out of hints.

In this example, you

have a playable card.
However, there are
no hints remaining,
so if you play it,
Player 2 has no way
to hint Player 3 that
You have run out of they have a Five in
hints! their chop. The best
move here is to trust
that your teammates
have left you a
discardable card in
your chop and
discard to regain a
hint

Remember: do not just think about your own turn. Think about the hints that your teammates will
need.

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Saves

Sometimes you will need to save a chop card where you are unable to hint it directly, because the card
is needed but it is not yet playable. There are some conventions you can use to save this card.

In this example, A good choice here

imagine that the first would be to hint
Green Four has Player 2’s Ones. This
already been is a rare case where
discarded. Therefore, a hint to discard is a
the only Green Four good move. You are
in the game is in throwing away hints,
Player 2’s chop. It is but it is necessary to
your turn. How will save the Green Four.
you save the Green Depending on what
Four? If you hint it Player 2 can see in
either a number or a the discard pile, they
colour, Player 2 will may even be able to
assume that it is deduce the saved
playable card

Player 2 rearranges
their hand to save the
Green Four, which is
now the finesse card

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Discard to Save Convention

In most cases, if you know you have a playable card, you should play it. Sometimes it is wise to defer
playing (for instance, to give an important hint). Deferring playing a known playable card and discarding
instead can be used as a signal to the next player that they should save their chop, using the Discard to
Save convention. This must only be used when it is necessary – hinting to discard costs precious time, as
described later in the Discard Hints section.

In this example, In this situation,

imagine that the first although you have a
Yellow Four has playable Four, you
already been discard using the
discarded. Therefore, Discard to Save
the only Yellow Four convention. In effect,
in the game is in you are saying to
Player 2’s chop. It is Player 2 that even
your turn. How will though you have a
you save the Yellow playable card, it is
Four? If you hint the more important that
colour, Player 2 will they should hint
assume that it is rather than discard
playable, and if you (using the hint you
hint all the Fours, have just bought
Player 2 will move a back with your
Five into the chop discard). Player 2
infers from this that
they must save their
Player 2 rearranges chop
their hand, placing
the saved chop card
in the finesse
position. This has the
added benefit that a
discardable card has
been moved to the
chop
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 THE LOST PAIR

Sometimes you are in a situation where adjacent players have the same card in their chop, and the table
did not have the time to save them. If they both discard on their turn, then the pair is lost, and a top
score is impossible. This is a tricky situation, but the key to surviving it is recognising the warning signs.

In this example, you

have just been
hinted a Four by
Player 3. Since you
are using the Hint to
Play convention, you
know it is playable.
You have run out of However, you will be
hints! leaving Player 2 with
no hints. You check
their chop and see
they have a safe
discard, so you play
the Four

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 You have just played
the Green Four.
Player 2 has no option
but to discard

Player 2 has just

discarded and
regained a hint.
However, Player 3
sees no good hints
on their turn, and so
decides to discard

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 In this situation, you
should not discard.
On Player 2’s turn,
they had no option
but to discard. Player
3 discarded their
Blue Four. There is a
chance that the
other Blue Four is in
your chop, because
Player 2 did not have
any hints to be able
to do anything about
it

This situation is more common than you might think. Often the pair is lost, and the player that had no
hints on their turn had been panicking, staring at the pair of cards in two Player’s chops, unable to do
anything about it. It is better to give a passive hint, such as hinting discardable cards, than to discard a
card that could be needed.

Whenever you are about to chop a card, always ask yourself if the table has had time to save it.

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 BATCH HINTS

Batch hints can be useful but can cause problems. Some common situations will be covered in this
section.

Above is an extreme example of the pitfalls and benefits of batch hints. It is the first turn of the game
and the stack is empty. You are presented with the possibility of batch hinting Player 2 or Player 3.

Batch hinting Player 2’s Fours might seem like an efficient use of a hint, but it is a bad idea that will
make the game unnecessarily difficult. This is because:

• It would put the Five immediately in the chop. The Five would have to be saved, and Player 2’s
hand would be completely frozen.
• Even if Player 2 managed to play the Five (or if it were a different card to the Five), all of Player
2’s new cards would immediately be drawn into the chop.
• Player 2’s hand will be frozen until some Threes get played, which places the burden of building
the stack entirely on you and Player 3 for over half the game.
• Since the Fours in Player 2’s hand are all different colours, it is likely that they would have to be
given an individual colour hint when they became playable, meaning that you have spent 1 ¼
hints on each card – higher than the one hint per card cost that we are aiming for.

26
 • When other players draw the same Fours, and they might be better placed to play them.

Batch hints of Fours are particularly susceptible to clogging up hands in this way, which is why they are
the most discardable unplayed card at the start of the game. Having four Fours in a hand is an extreme
example but hinting three or even two Fours as a batch hint early in the game causes problems. A batch
hint of two Fours in a three player game limits that player’s hand size to three cards until they can play
the Fours.

In contrast, an excellent batch hint in the above example would be to tell Player 3 that they have three
Ones, since they are all different colours and therefore are all playable. Choosing when and how to
batch hint is an important skill in Hanabi. Before giving a batch hint to a player, you should consider
whether you are getting value for the knowledge they are gaining, and whether it will freeze a part their
hand for too long. Below are more examples of possible batch hints and the affect they are likely to
have.

In this example, it may be worth hinting the three

Blue cards. This saves the Five and can be followed
up with a hint on the two Ones, so the hand will
not be frozen for long. Care must be taken not to
discard the Two

In this example, if the Two and the Three cannot be

hinted to play them, you have little choice but to
hint the three Fives, and this player’s hand will be
mostly frozen for most of the game. You are in for a
tough game!

In this example, it is tempting to hint the three

Threes. But it is better to hint the playable one first,
then hint the Threes individually when they
become playable. You should only hint the three
Threes to save the Blue Three

Remember: you are using the Hint to Play convention, so you do not need two pieces of information
to play a card. Keep this in mind when considering batch hints!

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Where it can go wrong – duplicate cards

There is a lot of luck in Hanabi, and sometimes you get dealt a bad hand with duplicate cards.

If it is the start of the game and a Yellow One has

not been played, it is probably worth waiting until
the Yellow One in the chop has been discarding
before hinting the other Yellow One

Below is a difficult to play but common type of hand, with a duplication that is not easily manipulated
into the player’s chop (again, assume that a Yellow One has not been played). You do not have the time
to wait for one of the Ones to make its way to the chop.

In this situation, there are two choices:

Option 1: Hint the two Yellow Ones with a number hint, then given a colour hint, so the player knows
the first card can be played and the second discarded.

Option 2: Hint the two Yellow Ones, and allow them both to be played, which would lose a fuse token.

Option 2 is the preferable option. This is counterintuitive, especially to new players, as it would result in
a lost ‘life’. But a key skill in Hanabi is recognising that fuse tokens are a resource for you to use. Your
enemy is time, not how many ‘lives’ you lose (unless you lose all three fuse tokens!). The hint that you
just spent telling the player to discard their unplayable Yellow One could have been used to hint
another playable card. It is true that if the Yellow One had instead been discarded, you would have got
the hint back, but precious time has been lost, as described later in the Discard Hints section – hinting a
discardable card instead of a playable card loses you a hint. The net cost in hints is the same if you hint
to discard or incorrectly play a duplicate card:

Hint to discard: 1 hint spent, 1 hint gained from the discard. Net gain: zero hints, time wasted.

Incorrect play of a duplicate: Net gain: zero hints, one fuse lost, time not wasted on a discard hint.

So, you might as well do something more proactive and get working on the stack. This is not the only
way that fuses can be used as a resource, more on that later in the guide.

Remember: fuse tokens are not ‘lives’, but a resource you can use to achieve a higher score. Having
more than one fuse token remaining at the end of the game does not give you extra points!

28
 HINTING TWOS

At the start of the game, before any Ones have been played, it can be useful to hint Twos that are in
hand. This is because Twos are arguably the most important cards – if you discard an unplayed Two and
the other Two of the same colour is at the bottom of the deck, you will struggle to score well. Hinting
Twos immediately saves them and allows you to rapidly build the early part of a firework.

However, as with batch hints (hinting Twos is a type of batch hint), there are good ways to hint Twos
(that add value) and bad ways to hint Twos (that waste hints). This section will cover some examples.

Remember that hinting Twos as a tactic only works before any Ones have been played, since a hint on a
Two when a One is in the stack will result in that Two being played because of the Hint to Play
convention – the below example refer only to opening hands.

When you should hint a Two:

Save any Twos in the chop with a direct number

hint. Twos are too precious to lose!

Hinting a Two that is the same colour as higher

numbered cards in the hand is a good idea. Once
the Blue One has been played, you can batch hint
the three Blues

Number hinting two or more Twos of different

colours in a hand is a good idea. The player should
be able to use deduction or gambling (both
discussed later in this guide) to successfully play
them without a second hint on the card, and there
will be the possibility of batch colour hints when
new cards are drawn

29
When you should not hint a Two:
Do not hint single Twos that are a different colour
to the rest of the hand. This is a waste of a hint as
it cannot be followed up with a colour batch hint.
The Two is not in any danger, so you can simply
wait until the One has been played, and
directly hint the Two

Do not hint duplicate Twos. Either wait for one to

be chopped and directly hint the other when it is
playable, or directly hint them both when they are
playable, at the cost of a fuse token as discussed
earlier

Do not hint a Two that is the same colour as a One

that is either in the same hand, or in another
player’s hand. The Two can be directly hinted after
the One has been played

If you are using Hinting Twos as a tactic, all players need to understand that a hint on a Two prior to any
Ones being played is not an attempt at a finesse, which will be covered later in this guide.

30
 DISCARD HINTS

Hinting a discardable card is a bad idea in most cases. There are circumstances when a non-playing hint
needs to be given, for instance when using the discard to save convention, or in the endgame when
played Fives have given you a surplus of hints and you need to delay the drawing of the last card from
the deck. The reason for this is that it costs time, and time is what prevents a high score in almost all
games.

Here we can borrow from chess, and the concept of the tempo. When a chess player achieves a desired
result in one fewer move, they are said to have “gained a tempo”. When a player is forced to react to an
aggressive move, they have “lost a tempo”.

The measure of tempo is Hanabi is the deck. The deck sets a finite limit on how much time you have.
This limit is easily calculated, since one tempo can be described as one drawn card. A Hanabi deck
consists of fifty cards. Therefore, in a three-player game after the fifteen cards of the opening hand are
drawn, there are thirty-five cards left in the deck. Each time you play or discard a card and draw from
the deck, this is a count of ‘one’ in this finite time limit. After the deck has been depleted, each player
has one more turn, and in an ideal game, this turn would be to play a card on to the stack (although this
perfect ending is rare). These final turns are the last count of the clock, meaning that the total tempo
count you have in a game is thirty-eight plays. This is the first reason why Hanabi becomes progressively
more difficult as number of players increases – you have less time, as the table below shows:

It is not possible to score twenty-five in every game, since you can only score maximum points when the
deck configuration allows it, but you should nonetheless play with this goal in mind. Therefore, there is a
limit to the number of cards you can discard, set by the maximum tempo of the game. You need twenty-
five tempo to play cards on to the stack, and the remainder is the maximum number of cards that can be
discarded. This is the second reason why Hanabi becomes progressively more difficult as number of
players increases – you must discard fewer cards:

31
The available tempo creates another constraint – the number of hints available. There are three sources
of hints: the starting eight, any discards, and any completed fireworks. This presents a limit on how
many hints will be available for the game: Starting Eight + Maximum Possible Discards + Completed
Fireworks. The number of completed fireworks at first glance would seem to be five – since there are
five colours. In practice, the usable hints you gain from completed fireworks will never be more than
four, since the game ends the moment the fifth firework is completed. This is the third reason why
Hanabi becomes progressively more difficult as number of players increases – you have fewer hints over
the course of the game, as the table below shows:

You should not use hints on discardable cards unless you must avoid a critical discard. Let hand good
hand management and the chop do the work! In a three-player game, you only have:

38 turns, 13 chances to discard, and 25 hints to use

Therefore, you must strive for one hint per playable card, and no more, since you have exactly the
number of hints you need to get a perfect score.

Since time is such a limiting factor, you and your team need to start using techniques that will get the
cost of a playable card below one hint.

32
 DEDUCTION

There are fifty cards in a Hanabi deck, split in to five colours, each of ten cards. Each colour has three
Ones, two Twos, two Threes, two Fours, and one Five. This means that at some point towards the end
of the game, you will have access to complete information about each firework. The key to using this
information is managing the discard pile. New players discard their cards in a deck, which is useless for
deduction. The discard pile should be laid out so that every card is visible:

The simplest way to work out if you have all the information you need about a particular number or
colour is to count the cards. Every number from Two to Four has ten cards. So, if you can see ten Fours,
for example, you know that all ten Fours are in play, and you have a chance to deduce what you have in
your hand. Every colour has ten cards, so if you can see ten Greens, you should be able to work out
what the Green in your hand is.

The examples below show deduction when you have complete, or nearly complete information. It is also
useful to remember what cards are not – i.e. if you have had knowledge of a card for multiple rounds,
and in those rounds have you received hints about other cards. For example, if you are hinted a Five in
an early round and receive a subsequent Yellow hint that does not include the Five, you know the Five is
not Yellow. There is no easy way to use memory aids to assist with this, so it is a skill you and your
playing group will have to develop.

33
In this example,
there are ten Fours
visible in the stack,
the chop, the
discard, and in hand.
You have enough
information to
deduce that the Four
in your hand is the
Red Four, so you will
be able to play it

34
In this example,
Player 2 can see ten
Greens in the stack,
the chop, the
discard, and in hand,
and so can deduce
that their Green
must be the playable
Five

35
A note on the chop card

At the end of your turn, it is good practice to move any card(s) you know you can discard into or towards
the chop. This can assist with another player’s deduction:

In this example, you This tells Player 2

have just ended your that you must be
turn (you played a able to see the
card on to the stack, Green Five, and
for example). Player since Player 2 cannot
2 has no information see it, they know it
about their hand. must be in their
However, you see hand. This might be
that Player 2 has a useful for deduction
playable Five, so you later
move your
discardable Green to
your chop

Note: you should only move cards after you receive a hint or on your turn. Moving cards on other player’s
turns to convey information (for example, when they draw a new card) is called Baseball Signalling.
Although not specifically against the rules, many groups will feel that Baseball Signalling is not in the spirit
of the game.

36
 GAMBLING

Gambling is playing a card that you have incomplete information about, but there is a chance it is the
correct card, and if you are wrong, you lose a fuse token. This seems like a rash strategy to beginners,
but as has been discussed previously, fuse tokens are a resource that can assist you to get a high score.

In this example, you

see that the Yellow
in your hand could
either be the Yellow
One or Yellow Five. SHOULD YOU
If you play it and it is GAMBLE?
a One, you will not
“break a firework” – YES!
you will only lose a
fuse token. However,
if it is the Yellow
Five, you have just
saved a hint

37
In this example, you Your known Blue is
see that Player 2 has either the Blue Three
moved their Blue to or the Blue Four. If
the chop. This must you play it and it is
mean they can see the Three, you will
all the Blues in the not “break a
stack, the chop, the firework” – you will
discard, and in hand. only lose a fuse
Since you can only token. However, if it
see nine Blues, the is the Blue Four, you
tenth must also be in have just saved a
your hand. You must hint
have a Blue Three
and a Blue Four in
your hand
SHOULD YOU
GAMBLE?

YES!

Remember: fuse tokens are not ‘lives’, but a resource you can use to achieve a higher score. Having
more than one fuse token remaining at the end of the game does not give you extra points!

Note: if a gamble does not work, you do have less chance of a high score. However, this guide
assumes that you will be playing lots of games, and successful gambling will average out.

38
 In this example, the
Blue in your hand
could be either a
Blue Four or a Blue SHOULD YOU
Five. If you play it GAMBLE?
and it is the Five, you
will never be able to NO!
complete Blue – you
will “Break the
Firework”

Remember: the key question to ask when gambling is “will I break a firework if I am wrong?” If the
answer is “yes”, then do not gamble!

39
In this example, it
seems there is a
good chance to play
your Two. But if you
play it and it is the SHOULD YOU
Yellow Two, you will GAMBLE?
be in for a difficult NO!
game if the other
Yellow Two is at the
bottom of the deck.
Be patient!

Remember: There are three fuse tokens in Hanabi – the game

gives you two chances to play a wrong card. if you are on your
final fuse token, do not gamble! If you get it wrong, you will
lose the game!

40
 DISCARD SIGNALLING

In certain situations, it is possible to safely discard a card that is not in your chop to signal the next
player that the same card in their hand is playable. This is particularly effective in the endgame when
you can see all the cards needed to complete a firework, so you know you have nothing playable in your
hand.

In this example, your Instead, you discard

team almost has a the card from your
perfect score! But hand that is in the
you can not hint same space as the
Player 2’s playable playable card in
Four, as both the Player 2’s hand
number and colour (circled in red). This
hint would be signals that Player 2
ambiguous has a playable card
in the same space.
You now have
enough information
for a perfect score!

Remember: you should only use Discard Signalling if you have complete information about the cards
you need to complete the stack, or you may end up discarding necessary cards.

41
 In this example, Instead, you PLAY
Player 2’s playable your chop card
card is in the Chop. If (assuming you have
you try to signal that a fuse token
it is playable by remaining). Since
chopping your chop this unexpected,
card, Player 2 will Player 2 interprets it
think that this is a as the signal that
normal move, and they should play the
not pick up that it is card in their chop.
a signal This loses a fuse
token, but this is
worth it to get a
perfect score

Remember: fuse tokens are not ‘lives’, but a resource you can use to achieve a higher score. Having
more than one fuse token remaining at the end of the game does not give you extra points!

42
 PROMPTS, FINESSES, AND BLUFFS

Prompts, finesses, and bluffs are powerful tools you can use to maximise hint value. Remember, your
goal is to play cards at a maximum cost of one hint per card. Any cards you can play at less than one hint
per card represent good value and will contribute to a higher score. However, for new players, these
tactics can look complex and intimidating. Playing a few training games with a semi-open hand, as
described earlier, will help the group’s understanding.

The first thing to understand is that prompts, finesses, and bluffs all have the same starting hint: A hint
on a card that has a gap of one between it and the stack. Remember, you are using the Hint to Play
convention, which means that any single card that is hinted must be playable. So, how does this work if
there is a gap of one between the hinted card and the stack, as in the example below?

In this example, you

hint the Three in
Player 3’s hand.
There is a gap of one
between it and the
stack of the same
colour. So how can it
be playable?

The answer is that the hinted card must only be playable if another card in hand is playable first. In the
above example, it is your turn, and you can see that Player 2 must play their Yellow Two before Player 3
can play their Yellow Three. But how do you make this tactic work? The first thing to understand is the
finesse direction.

Fact: the term finesse comes from Contract Bridge and similar games, and is a card play technique to
win an additional trick or tricks.

43
Finesse direction

When a prompt, finesse, or bluff is being played, it is played in a direction with respect to the two
players it is being played on. This direction is either Natural (in the order of play) or Reverse (against the
order of play). In the below examples, it is Player 1 giving the hint.

Natural direction – a hint given to Player 3 to prompt/finesse/bluff Player 2:

Reverse direction – a hint given to Player 2 to either prompt/finesse/bluff Player 3, or it is an in-hand

prompt/finesse/bluff:

44
A Prompt tells the player being prompted that a card they know something about must be played before
the card that was hinted.

In this example, you

hint the Three in
NATURAL Player 3’s hand. This
PROMPT tells Player 2 that
their known Two
must be playable

Note: if the player being prompted has multiple known cards, the prompt should refer to the first
known card adjacent to the finesse card. If this is obviously not playable, it should refer to the card
next to that, etc (so moving from left to right).

45
In this example, you
hint the Three in
Player 2’s hand. REVERSE
Since it is not PROMPT
playable, this tells
Player 3 that their
known Two must be
playable

In this example, you

hint the Three in
Player 2’s hand.
Player 2 sees that IN-HAND
Player 3 has no PROMPT
known cards, and
their finesse card is
not playable. This
tells Player 2 that
their known Two
must be playable

46
A Finesse tells the player being finessed that their finesse card must be played before the card that was
hinted.

In this example, you

hint the Three in
Player 3’s hand. This
NATURAL tells Player 2 that
FINESSE their finesse card
must be playable,
since none of their
known cards is
playable

In this example, you

hint the Three in
Player 2’s hand. This
tells Player 3 that REVERSE
their finesse card FINESSE
must be playable

47
In this example, you
hint the Three in
Player 2’s hand.
Since Player 3 has no IN-HAND
playable cards either FINESSE
known or in their
finesse, this tells
Player 2 that their
finesse card is
playable

48
 A Bluff works just like a finesse, except that you are not being truthful about the target card. This works
because even though the target card does not fill the gap between the stack and the hinted card, it is
still playable.

In this example, you hint the

Four in Player 3’s hand. Player 2
will assume this means they have
NATURAL the Three in their finesse
BLUFF position and will play it. It is not
the Three, but it is the
playable Yellow Two – and you
have acquired extra information
for free. Player 3 should be able
to deduce that they have the
Four, since Player 2 was
being bluffed

In this example, you hint the

Four in Player 2’s hand. Player 3
will assume this means they have
the Three in their finesse REVERSE
position and will play it. It is not BLUFF
the Three, but it is the
playable Yellow Two – and you
have acquired extra information
for free. Player 2 should be able
to deduce that they have the
Four, since Player 3 was
being reverse bluffed

49
In this example, you hint
the Four in Player 2’s hand.
Player 2 can see that Player
3 has no known cards and
IN HAND
does not have a playable
BLUFF
finesse, so they will assume
they have the Three
in the finesse position. As
before, it is not the
Three, but can be played,
and extra information
deduced

These are only the basic prompts, finesse, and bluffs. Reading this, you might already be imagining a
chain of finesse and prompt plays involving three or four cards played in a row. It is difficult to
implement more sophisticated and subtle finesse type moves unless you are playing regularly in a group
with consistently high-level play. Also, some finesse structures are only applicable to higher player
counts. Therefore, I have decided not to explore them here, since this guide is aimed at a new and
improving group. If you wish to find out more, an excellent place to look is the Hyphen-ated online
Hanabi group, and their database of conventions.

Remember: Prompts, finesses, and bluffs are difficult to play, especially for new players. Try not to
over complicate it – keep the hinting simple. For example, do not hint a pair of cards because you are
hoping one of them will induce a finesse play. It should stick out like a sore thumb that there is a gap
of one between the card you are hinting and the stack.

50
The hierarchy of prompt/finesse/bluff decisions

When you receive a hint that has a gap of one between it and the stack, how do you know if you are
being prompted or finessed? Below is a decision tree which shows the hierarchy of prompt/finesse
hints, and how you should react to them. It is designed from the point of view of the hinted player and
the finessed player, so if you are the hinting player, care should be taken so that the hint is
unambiguous.

Where it can go wrong

Prompts, finesses, and bluffs can go spectacularly wrong. In the space of a turn you can find yourself
with a fuse token lost, a firework broken, and a table full of irate players. There are too many ways to list
that it can go wrong. Any prompt, finesse, or bluff hint can be constructed using either number or colour
hints (although number hints tend to be more reliable). Colour hints on a bluff are especially liable to
error, since the player receiving the hint must deduce that their card is not playable. The most common
reason they go wrong is players not realising that they have been finessed and carrying on playing as
normal, which is a tragedy to the player constructing the finesse. Another common problem is a player
hinting a playable card that could have been part of a finesse sequence, and so missing an opportunity
(try to avoid hinting a player’s finesse card). The only antidote is practice – as much as your team is
willing to. The payoff of mastering these techniques is being able to reliably play cards for half price –
one hint gets you two playable cards, and if you can pull off two or three in a game, you’ve got a great
chance of a big score.

51
Acknowledgements

This guide would not have been possible without the input and patience of a my Hanabi group. Thanks
to Helen Ostle for creating the group in the first place. Thanks to Sandra Fairbrother, James Timms,
Mikey Pelengaris, Martin Bampton, Maurin Molle, Katie Manns, and Laura Warren for going down the
rabbit hole with me to explore some of these strategies and contribute ideas of your own.

Thanks also to the online Hanabi community, which is such a rich source of ideas. Of particular note is
the extraordinary resource that is the Hyphen-ated online Hanabi group, whose exhaustive list of
strategies and conventions was an inspiration and goes well beyond the scope of this guide.

52