Normally, your teammates would never let you discard anything important. So when you discard some playable card (or a needed 2) and that card is not in anyone else's hand, you might think that the team made a mistake.
From High Value Principle, you should never assume your teammates are making a mistake. One excellent reason that they would let you discard an important card is that you have the other copy in your hand. (In order to satisfy Good Touch Principle, they had to wait for you to discard it so that they would not duplicate the card.)
Thus, when you get a follow-up clue, you will know exactly what card it is.
For example, in a 3-player game:
Red 3 is played on the stacks.
Alice has a completely unclued hand.
Alice discards her chop (slot 5). It is a (playable) red 4.
Alice gasps in surprise - she knows that everyone on the team agrees to not let each other discard playable cards (Save Principle).
Alice knows that the team was not in a dire situation or anything, so the only explanation is that she must have the other copy of the red 4.
Alice writes a note of "r4?" on slots 2, 3, 4, and 5. (It can't be on slot 1, since that is the card she just drew.)
Bob clues Alice red, which touches a card on slot 1 and slot 2.
Normally, Alice would play the leftmost card (slot 1) as the red 4. However, because of her notes, she knows that the red 4 must actually be on slot 2.
Alice successfully plays red 4 from slot 2. Since the red 5 is the only good red card left, Alice can assume that her other red card is red 5 (from Good Touch Principle), and she can play it on the next turn.
In this example, the "r4?" notes that Alice writes are called Elimination Notes. Elimination Notes are notes that represent the possible slots for a specific card.
In this example, the "thing" that triggered the writing of Elimination Notes was the discarding of a card, so this is called Discard Elimination.
Note that players should not always make Elimination Notes when they discard a playable card. In some cases, games can be extremely busy, leaving no reasonable way to get the playable card. Players must use their best judgment and account for this.
When a player who is in a Double Discard situation discards anyway with an obvious clue to give (such as a 5 Stall), it implies that they see the other copy of the card, and were not Double Discarding at all.
Thus, when this occurs, you should write Elimination Notes on your entire hand for that card.
This is almost exactly the same thing as Discard Elimination, except it is triggered by the discard of a separate player.
According to Save Principle, everyone knows that all of the 2's must get saved. Thus, if someone else on the team lets a 2 get discarded, that is very strange.
If there is not anything special going on, then this should be a signal that someone else has the other copy of the 2, and should trigger the writing of Elimination Notes on their hand.
In the example for Discard Elimination, the team clued the second copy of the red 4 directly. But in other situations, the team will not need to clue anything. The player with the Elimination Notes can eliminate the possibilities one by one. When there is only one possibility left, they can blind-play the card as an Elimination Blind-Play.
For example, in a 3-player game:
Red 3 is played on the stacks.
Alice has a completely unclued hand.
Alice discards her chop (slot 5). It is a (playable) red 4.
Alice knows that the team was not in a dire situation or anything, so the only explanation is that she must have the other copy of the red 4.
Alice writes "r4?" Elimination Notes on slots 2, 3, 4, and 5. (It can't be on slot 1, since that is the card she just drew.)
Bob clues Alice blue, which touches slots 1, 2, 3, and 4. (This is a Play Clue on slot 1.)
Alice writes a note of "blue 1" on slot 1.
Alice erases her Elimination Notes for the red 4 from slots 2, 3, and 4.
The only card left with an Elimination Note is slot 5.
Alice can now blind-play the red 4 when it gets to her turn as an Elimination Blind-Play.
A clue that touches multiple cards only has one focus. As you probably know, if the chop card was not touched, then the focus is the leftmost card.
However, this rule does not apply if a clue singles out a playable card from Elimination. In this case, the card is only focused on the Elimination card, and any other cards touched are not necessarily playable right now.
For example, in a 3-player game:
Red 1 and blue 1 are played on the stacks.
Alice has both red 2's in her hand on slot 2 and slot 5. (Alice's chop is her slot 5.)
Alice discards her chop, and it is revealed to be the red 2.
Alice is surprised, and writes Discard Elimination Notes for red 2 on slots 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Bob gives a number 2 clue to Alice that touches a card in slot 1, slot 3 and slot 4.
Normally, Alice would treat this as a Play Clue on the 2 in her slot 1. However, she knows from her elimination notes that this is not the red 2, so the focus of the clue moves to the right. Therefore, slot 3 is exactly red 2 (and she can play it right now).
Alice knows that the point of the clue was only to get the red 2. Her cards in slots 1 and 4 can be any 2's in the game and are not necessarily playable right now.
Sometimes, players will have two or more Elimination Notes on cards in their hand. These players can be given follow-up clues that single out the identity of the Elimination card.
Clues can single out the Elimination card using positive information or by using negative information.
Example of an Elimination Single-Out Using a Clue With Positive Information
When a clue is given that singles out an Elimination card with negative information, then the focus of the clue should be evaluated normally.
In other words, the focused slot should be evaluated before the clue was given, just like how every other clue works.
For example, continuing on from the previous example:
Alice also knows that Bob's number 3 clue must be a Play Clue on the red 3 (since red 1 is on the only 1 currently played and there are no 3's in the trash).
But which slot is Bob's clue focusing? In other words, which slot is promised to be red 3?
The clue is either focused on slot 2 (the newest of the clued cards) or slot 4 (the "new" chop after the red 2 is accounted for).
Alice knows that you evaluate where the chop is before clues are given, so the clue must be focused on slot 2.
there are only two cards left in a player's hand with Elimination Notesand
the previous players let the chop card ride and
the previous players were not busy, then
The card with the Elimination Note card cannot be on the chop! (Otherwise, one of the previous players would have clued it with either a Play Clue or a Save Clue in order to prevent it from being discarded.)
In such a situation, the player with the Elimination Notes can "jump ahead" and immediately blind-play the newest of the two cards.
For example, in a 3-player game:
Red 1 has been played on the red stack.
Alice has a completely unclued hand.
Alice discards her chop (slot 5). It is a (playable) red 2.
Alice knows that the team was not busy, so she must have the other copy of red 2.
Alice writes Elimination Notes on slots 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Alice receives no clues on the next go-around of the table. She discards, and now has Elimination Notes on slots 3, 4, and 5.
Alice receives no clues on the next go-around of the table. She discards, and now has Elimination Notes on slots 4 and 5.
Alice receives no clues on the next go-around of the table. Her teammates would not let the other copy of red 2 be discarded, so it must be on slot 4. Alice blind-plays red 2 from slot 4.
Sometimes, a player will have narrowed down their Elimination Notes to one specific card. Thus, even if the card happens to have no positive clues on it, the player will know the exact identity of the card.
In this situation, the player should Self-Chop Move the card. In other words, since the Elimination Notes were globally known, there is no need for someone on the team to waste a clue to prevent the discard of the card.
Normally, if a player is Finessed, they are supposed to play their Finesse Position card. However, what if they have Elimination Notes on their hand for the specific card that is Finessed?
In most situations, there will not be an Elimination Note on slot 1 (e.g. the Finesse Position). This means that playing slot 1 into the Finesse would not make any sense.
However, in the rare case where there is an Elimination Note on their Finesse Position, then the player should still not play the Finesse Position; read on.
Here, the player is expected to play the oldest of the cards with the Elimination Notes on them (not counting Chop Moved cards, if any).
For example, in a 3-player game:
Blue 2 is played on the stacks.
Alice has a completely unclued hand.
Alice discards a blue 3. Blue 3 was playable, and nothing urgent is currently happening, so she writes Elimination Notes on her hand for the other blue 3 on slots 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Bob clues Cathy blue, which touches a blue 4 as a Play Clue.
Cathy discards.
Alice knows that this is some sort of Reverse Finesse, as it is calling for the blue 3. However, the blue 3 cannot be in her Finesse Position (slot 1), as she knows from the Elimination Notes that it must be either on slot 2, 3, 4, or 5. So it must instead be a Reverse Elimination Finesse.
The Elimination Finesse promises that it is her oldest card, so she plays slot 5 as blue 3.
As mentioned above, Chop Moved cards should be skipped over when finding the Elimination Finesse target. If there are two or more cards with Elimination Notes on them and they are all Chop Moved, then the oldest Chop Moved card should be played.
Elimination Finesses apply to all types of situations with Elimination Notes (including Double Discard Elimination Notes). Subsequently, you can more specifically describe an Elimination Finesse as a Discard Elimination Finesse or a Double Discard Elimination Finesse.
Note that normal Finesses take priority over Self-Elimination Finesses. For example, in a 3-player game:
Red 2 and blue 2 are played on the stacks.
Alice's hand is completely unclued. Alice has Elimination Notes on slot 3 and slot 4 for red 3.
Cathy clues a number 4 in Alice's slot 1 as a Self-Finesse.
If Alice's 4 is a blue 4, then this would be a normal Self-Finesse, and Alice should blind-play blue 3 from slot 2.
If Alice's 4 is a red 4, then this would be an Elimination Self-Finesse, and Alice should blind-play red 3 from slot 4.
Alice knows that in this situation, you always supposed to assume a normal Finesse, so she blind-plays blue 3 from slot 2.
Players carefully choose between using a color clue and a number clue in order to avoid violating Good Touch Principle. Sometimes, when both a color clue and a number would violate Good Touch Principle, players are forced to pick between the lesser of two evils.
For example, in a 3-player game:
Red 3 and blue 1 are played on the stacks.
Bob's hand is, from newest to oldest: red 4, red 3, blue 4, blue 4, blue 1
If Alice needs to clue the red 4 right now for some reason, she would be screwed. If she clues red, she would duplicate the red 3. If she clues number 4, she would duplicate the blue 4. Both are bad.
So, Alice has to choose between the lesser of two evils and chooses to clue number 4 as a Play Clue on the red 4.
Bob plays the red 4.
Now, Cathy has to interpret what happened. Normally, Alice duplicating the blue 4 would mean that she is making a mistake or something else special is going on. However, in this situation, Cathy knows that Alice had to choose between two evils, so the number 4 clue is considered to be ordinary.
In some situations, players can see that it is possible to use a color or number clue to uniquely touch a clue target without "picking up" extra bad cards. So if a clue is given that does so anyway, it is conveying an extra special message.
When this occurs, and there is exactly one "missing" card, players should write an Elimination Note in their hand for the missing card. This is called Trash Touch Elimination.
For example, in a 3-player game:
Red 3 and all the other 1s are played on the stacks.
Bob's hand is, from newest to oldest: red 4, red 1, blue 1, green 1, yellow 1
Alice wants to give a play clue to the red 4. Everyone else on the team (other than Bob) can see that she can give either number 4 or red.
If Alice clues number 4, then it will uniquely touch the red 4 (which will satisfy Good Touch Principle).
If Alice clues red, then it will touch the red 4 and the red 1 (which will violateGood Touch Principle).
Alice clues red to Bob. Since nothing was stopping her from cluing number 4, this is very strange.
Bob plays the red 4.
There is only one "missing" red card - the red 5. Cathy knows that normally, Bob would think that his red 1 is the red 5 (from Good Touch Principle). This must mean that Cathy has the red 5. Cathy writes Trash Touch Elimination Notes on her hand for the red 5.
Interaction Between Trash Touch Elimination & Potentially Unknown Trash
Normally, when a trash card is clued to initiate a Trash Chop Move, the card is globally known to be trash at the moment the clue is given.
However, it is also possible that one player may not already know that the clued card is trash.
When the clued card discards, that player realizes that a Trash Chop Move has occurred, assisted by the presence of the final non-trash card(s) in their hand.
For example, in a 3-player game:
Red 4, green 1, and blue 1 are played on the stacks.
Bob's hand is completely unclued and is as follows: blue 1, blue 1, red 4, blue 3, green 3
Cathy's hand is completely unclued and is as follows: red 5, red 1, red 1, red 2, red 3
Alice clues red to Bob, touching his red 4 on slot 3.
Bob knows that from Good Touch Principle, the only good red card is red 5. Since Bob sees the red 5 in Cathy's hand, his red card must be trash. Thus, Alice must be intending a Trash Chop Move.
Bob discards his red card and marks his slot 4 and slot 5 cards as being Chop Moved.
Cathy is surprised to see that Bob did not misplay the red 4 as a red 5.
The only explanation is that Cathy has the red 5 in her hand. Since there is only one copy of a useful red card left, Cathy knows the "1 copy left" Trash Touch Elimination rule applies. Subsequently, Cathy writes Elimination Notes on her entire hand for the red 5.
Alternatively, if there were two or more "good" copies of red cards existing, Cathy would be expected to blind-play as a Trash Finesse instead.