Ejection refers to a move like a Bluff, but instead of playing an unrelated card from Finesse Position, someone plays an unrelated card from their Second Finesse Position. For example, if a player's hand is completely unclued, their Second Finesse Position is slot 2.
Just like a Bluff, an Ejection can only be performed on the very next player.
Several different kinds of moves can cause an Ejection. The most common one is the 5 Color Ejection.
Normally, if a player gives a color Play Clue to a previously untouched 5, it would mean that it is a Finesse on the 5 and all of the cards leading up to the 5 are playable.
If the very next player sees that they will only have to blind-play one card in their hand to fulfill the Finesse, then they should assume that it is a Finesse and blind-play their Finesse Position.
If the very next player sees that they would have to blind-play two or more cards in their hand to fulfill the Finesse, then a Finesse is unlikely. Instead, players agree that this signals an Ejection and that the next player should play their Second Finesse Position.
Prompts don't factor into the "two or more blind-plays" rule. Players only count the number of blind-plays.
After the blind-play, the player who received the clue will know that they must have a 5.
Note that 5 Color Ejection only applies if the 5 did not have any clues on it already. If a 5 is re-clued, it signals a Finesse on all of the cards leading up to the 5.
However, the "invisible" clue from a Chop Move does not count. In other words, you can perform a 5 Color Ejection with a Chop Moved 5, as long as the card does not have any positive clues on it.
For example, in a 3-player game:
It is the first turn and nothing is played on the stacks.
Alice clues red to Cathy, touching a red 5 on slot 3.
Bob knows that normally, this would be a Finesse on the 5, indicating to Bob that he has the red 1, the red 2, the red 3, and the red 4. However, since this calls for more than one blind card, he knows that 5 Color Ejection should take precedence, so he knows to play his Second Finesse Position card. It is a red 1 and it successfully plays.
From Cathy's perspective, if Bob had played his Finesse Position card in response to the red clue, then Cathy would know that it was a Finesse or a Bluff. But since Bob blind-played his Second Finesse Position card, it must be a 5 Color Ejection. Cathy marks the red card as red 5.
In the previous example, a 5 Color Ejection was preformed with the 5 being the only new card introduced with the color clue. However, it is also possible to perform a 5 Color Ejection with more than one card introduced.
For players playing at level 21, this kind of thing would normally signal an Out-of-Order Finesse, but the 5 Color Ejection interpretation should take precedence as long as the next player would have to blind-play two or more cards.
For example, in a 3-player game:
It is the first turn and nothing is played on the stacks.
Alice clues red to Cathy, touching a red 5 on slot 2 and a red 2 on slot 3.
Bob knows that at level 21, this would be an Out-of-Order Finesse on the 5, indicating to Bob that he has the red 1, the red 3, and the red 4. However, since this calls for more than one blind card, he knows that 5 Color Ejection should take precedence, so he knows to play his Second Finesse Position card. It is a red 1 and it successfully plays.
From Cathy's perspective, if Bob had played his Finesse Position card in response to the red clue, then Cathy would know that it was a Finesse or a Bluff. But since Bob blind-played his Second Finesse Position card, it must be a 5 Color Ejection. Cathy marks the red card as red 5. Her other red card can be red 2, red 3, or red 4.
In general, Bluffs work because the blind-play tells the person who was clued that they have a one-away-from-playable card of that color.
In general, Trash Bluffs work because the blind-play tells the person who was clued that they have a trash card.
Players must be careful to not give a Trash Bluff that looks like a Bluff - that will desynchronize the team.
For example, in a 3-player game:
All the 1's are played on the stacks.
Alice clues red to Cathy, touching a red 1 as a Play Clue.
Bob blind-plays his Finesse Position and it successfully plays as blue 2.
Cathy knows that a Bluff has occurred and marks her red card as red 3 (the one-away-from-playable red card).
Of course, this is not true, because Cathy's red card is actually a red 1. The team will likely get a misplay at some point in the future.
If the above example happens and Alice is not making a mistake, then Alice must be trying to communicate something extra. This should signal an Discharge on the very next player.
Since the Third Finesse Position card was played instead of the Finesse Position card, then the player who received the clue will know that the card is trash.
For example, in a 3-player game:
All the 1's are played on the stacks.
Alice clues red to Cathy, touching a red 1 as a Play Clue.
Bob knows that if he played his First Finesse Position, then Cathy would write a note of red 3 on the card (as a Bluff), which would be a Lie.
Bob knows that if he played his Second Finesse Position, then Cathy would write a note of red 5 on the card (as a 5 Color Ejection), which would be a Lie.
Bob blind-plays his Third Finesse Position. It is a blue 2 and it successfully plays.
Cathy knows that a Discharge has occurred from Alice's red clue. This must be an Unknown Trash Discharge, so the focus of the clue must be trash.
Cathy marks her red card as a red 1 (since that is the only possible trash red card) and discards it.
In summary:
For a Trash Bluff:
The empathy on the clued card only contains possibilities that are Playable, Delayed Playable, or trash.
Thus, a normal blind-play is enough to prove it is trash.
For an Unknown Trash Discharge:
The empathy on the clued card contains one or more possibilities that are useful and currently unplayable.
Thus, something extra is needed to prove it is trash.
Other than this, don't use more complicated factors to prefer a Trash Bluff over an Unknown Trash Discharge (like Bob having to wait on some other card).
When multiple cards are clued with an Unknown Trash Discharge, only the focus of the clue is considered to be trash. This means that Good Touch Principle applies to the non-focused cards.
Note that this is the opposite of the Trash Bluff. (In a Trash Bluff, when multiple cards are clued, all of the touched cards are considered to be trash.)
This means that while most Unknown Trash Discharges are 1-for-1 clues, you can also perform an Unknown Trash Discharge as a 2-for-1, a 3-for-1, and so forth.
For example, in a 3-player game:
(This is almost exactly the same as the previous example.)
All the 1's are played on the stacks.
Alice clues red to Cathy, touching a red 1 on slot 2 and a red 5 on slot 3. The red 1 is focused. This looks like a Play Clue on the red 1.
Bob knows that this must be an Unknown Trash Discharge, so he blind-plays his Third Finesse Position. It is a blue 2 and it successfully plays.
Cathy knows that a Discharge has occurred from Alice's red clue. This must be an Unknown Trash Discharge, so the focus of the clue must be trash.
Cathy marks her slot 2 card as a red 1 (since that is the only possible trash red card) and discards it.
Cathy also knows that non-focused cards touched in an Unknown Trash Discharge are supposed to be useful. Thus, Cathy marks her slot 3 card as a red 2, a red 3, a red 4, or a red 5.
Rarely, it is also possible to perform a Discharge using a clue that would normally look like a Trash Bluff, by cluing other non-trash cards.
For example, in a 3-player game:
All the 1's except for red 1 are played on the stacks.
Alice clues number 1 to Cathy, touching a green 1 on slot 1 and a red 1 on slot 2. The focus is on the green 1 as a Play Clue.
From Bob's perspective, this looks like it could be a Trash Finesse. In other words, if Bob blind-played his Finesse Position, then Cathy would write the correct note on the green 1. However, a Trash Finesse promises that all the cards touched are trash. In this case, the red 1 is not a trash card, so playing slot 1 would lie to Cathy about the identity of the red 1.
Thus, Bob interprets the clue as a Unknown Trash Discharge and blind-plays his Third Finesse Position. It is a blue 2 and successfully plays.
Typically, players closely follow Good Touch Principle, since duplicating cards is confusing and wastes efficiency on follow-up Fix Clues.
However, there are still plenty of situations where players will intentionally duplicate a card:
When it is the first turn of the game (and there is nothing else to do).
When the team is at 8 clues (and there is nothing else to do).
When a player is in a Double Discard Situation (and there is nothing else to do).
When the team is losing and nearing the End-Game (and Tempo on playable cards is really important).
When the efficiency of getting a big Finesse outweighs the disadvantage of potentially having to give a Fix Clue later.
If a player uses a clue to duplicate a card, and these criteria do not apply, then they must be trying to send an additional message.
In this case, they intend for a Discharge to communicate the "badness" of the focused card. This is called an Unknown Dupe Discharge (and works in a very similar way to the Unknown Trash Discharge).
After an Unknown Dupe Discharge, the focus of the clue can be any unknown duplicated card. The player will only know which specific duplicated card it is after they discard it.
For example, in a 3-player game:
It is the first turn of the game and nothing is played on the stacks.
Alice clues number 5 to Bob as a 5 Save.
Bob's hand is as follows: red 2, red 2, red 4, blue 4, blue [5]
Bob clues green to Cathy as a play clue.
Cathy clues red to Bob, touching the red 2 on slot 1, the red 2 on slot 2, and the red 4 on slot 3.
Alice knows that Cathy is violating Good Touch Principle and duplicating the red 2. There doesn't seem to be a very good reason for this, so this must be an Unknown Dupe Discharge.
Alice blind-plays her Third Finesse Position. It is a blue 1 and it successfully plays on the stacks.
Normally, Bob would think that this was an Unknown Trash Discharge. However, no red trash cards exist. Thus, this must have been an Unknown Dupe Discharge.
Bob discards his slot 1 card (the focus of the clue). It is revealed to be a red 2. Now, Bob writes Elimination Notes for the red 2 on his slot 2 and his slot 3.
Unknown Dupe Discharges can be initiated with either color clues or number clues.
Unknown Dupe Discharges only apply if the two duplicated cards are in the same person's hand.
It is explicitly illegal to perform an Unknown Dupe Discharge that duplicates a card in someone else's hand. If this happens, the clue must have some other meaning.
Remember that after an Unknown Dupe Discharge, the player who received the clue is supposed to discard the focus of the clue.
However, in the case where only two new cards are touched, then the player who received the clue knows that both of these cards must be the same. In this special case, they can discard the non-focused card to cause a Trash Order Chop Move.
Note that if the Unknown Dupe Discharge was initiated by a chop-focus clue, this means that the expected discard order is thus different from the usual 'left to right' order, since in that case, the focus of the clue will be rightmost.
Players are also expected to discard focus-first even in the case where it is globally known that the clued cards are duplicated cards. This is because in general, it can be hard to tell if the clue receiver knows that an Unknown Dupe Discharge has occurred, because it could have been an Unknown Trash Discharge, in which case only the focus is discardable. Discarding focus-first in all cases avoids desync on whether the clue receiver knows they hold dupes or simply trash.
In order for players to determine whether or not a Finesse is happening, they should use the same two-or-more-blind-plays rule that applies to 5 Color Ejections.
For example, in a 3-player game (similar to the previous example):
It is the first turn of the game and nothing is played on the stacks.
Alice clues number 5 to Bob as a 5 Save.
Bob clues number 5 to Alice as a 5 Save.
Bob's hand is as follows: red 3, red 3, red 4, blue 4, blue [5]
Cathy clues red to Bob, touching the red 3 on slot 1, the red 3 on slot 2, and the red 4 on slot 3.
Alice knows that Cathy is violating Good Touch Principle and duplicating the red 3. One excellent reason to do this would be to get a Double Finesse on red 1 + red 2 into the red 3.
However, Alice also knows that she is supposed to use the two-or-more-blind-plays rule in this situation. Since Alice would have to blind-play two cards into the Finesse, a Finesse is unlikely. Thus, this must be an Unknown Dupe Discharge.
Alice blind-plays her Third Finesse Position. It is a blue 1 and it successfully plays on the stacks.