Level 25 - Priority

• This level introduces Priority, which requires players to pay attention to the order that cards are played in.
• This can take a while to internalize, because signals from Priority are easy to miss.
• Make sure that you are totally comfortable with the earlier levels before attempting to add Priority to the mix.

Special Moves

The Priority Prompt & The Priority Finesse

• Typically, players will only have one card to play at a time. In this case, unless there is some really good clue to give, there are no decisions to be made - they just play their one playable card.
• What if a player has two or more playable cards to play? Which card should they play first?
• If one of the cards is not completely known yet (e.g. a playable 2 of unknown color), then the player might want to play that card first in order to find out exactly what it is. In general, nothing special is triggered by players playing an unknown card.
• On the other hand, something special can be triggered if a player plays a fully-known card, because they knew exactly what they were doing. Our group agrees that playable cards should be played in a specific order. We refer to this as Priority. The agreed Priority is as follows:

Priority	Category of card	Reason	Can Do Something Else
1	Blind-plays	Demonstrating that a Finesse or Bluff occurred is very important.	❌
2	Cards that lead into clued cards in someone else's hand	Otherwise, the team would lose Tempo.	✔️
3	Cards that lead into the player's own hand	It is bad for a suit to be "held up" on one player.	✔️
4	5's	Playing a 5 gets the team a free clue.	✔️
5	The lower rank card	The smaller stacks are more important to fill up.	✔️
6	The leftmost card	The leftmost card is more likely to be good.	✔️
*	Unknown card	Playing unknown cards helps players gain more information about their hand. Note that unknown cards do not have their own Priority level because you should apply the table to each possible identity for the unknown card. (Reminder: playing an unknown card almost never triggers Priority.)

• If someone plays a fully-known card and the card does not have Priority, then the player must be trying to send a special message.
• Based on what card they did play, if you have any clued cards in your hand that match the next "connecting" card, it is a message that you can play it right now as a Priority Prompt. (This is similar to a normal Prompt, except instead of initiating the Prompt with a clue, they initiated it with the order that they played cards.)
• For example, in a 3-player game:
  • Alice has a clued + known playable red 1 and a clued + known playable blue 2 in her hand. Bob has two clued 3s in his hand.
  • Alice plays blue 2.
  • Bob comes next. Bob knows that normally Alice had a choice and therefore were supposed to play the lowest rank card - red 1 (unless it is a blind-play, or it leads into someone's hand, or it is a 5). Alice did not play the card with Priority.
  • Bob doesn't see blue 3 in Cathy's hand. This must have been a Priority Prompt. Bob plays the leftmost clued 3, and it's blue 3.

• Similar to a normal Prompt, if a Priority Prompt could apply to two or more clued cards, then you should play the leftmost one.
• Similar to a normal Prompt, if a Priority Prompt made you play the leftmost card and it was not the connecting card, then you should continuing playing clued cards until you find the connecting card.
• Alternatively, if you do not have any clued cards in your hand that connects to the card that they played, then you should play your Finesse Position card as a Priority Finesse.
• For example, in a 3-player game:
  • Alice has a clued + known playable red 1 and a clued + known playable blue 2 in her hand.
  • Alice plays blue 2.
  • Bob comes next. Bob knows that normally, when you have a choice between two cards, you are supposed to play the lowest rank card (unless it's a blind-play, etc). Bob knows that Alice was supposed to play the red 1 instead of the blue 2. Alice did not play the card with Priority.
  • Bob sees blue 3 in Cathy's Finesse Position. This means that Alice in did a Priority Finesse on Cathy, not on Bob. Bob does something unrelated.
  • Cathy blind-plays her Finesse Position card. It is a blue 3.

The Priority Bluff

• Similar to a normal Bluff, it is also possible for players to perform a Priority Bluff.
• For example, in a 3-player game:
  • Alice has a known playable red 1 and a known playable blue 2 in her hand.
  • Alice plays blue 2.
  • Bob comes next. Bob knows that normally, when you have a choice between two cards, you are supposed to play the lowest rank card. (Unless it is a blind-play, or it leads into someone's hand, or it is a 5.) Bob does not see any blue 3's, so he knows that Alice was supposed to play the red 1 instead of the blue 2. Alice did not play the card with Priority.
  • This means that Bob must have a blue 3. Bob does not have any clued cards in his hand, so he blind-plays his Finesse Position card. It is not the blue 3 and is instead the green 1. Bob now knows that he was Bluffed and that no-one has the blue 3.

The Layered Priority Finesse

• Similar to a normal Layered Finesse, it is also possible to initiate a Layered Priority Finesse as long as the blind-playing player is not the very next person.

The Load Clue

• First, see the section on the Priority Prompt & The Priority Finesse.
• In Hanabi, it is optimal to play cards that lead into your teammate's hands because it gains Tempo and reduces bottom-deck risk. Priority is optimized for the special case where the next card is on someone's Finesse Position. However, it is actually more common that the next card is not on Finesse Position. As you can imagine, a huge downside of playing with Priority is that you can't play into non-Finesse Position cards (or else someone would misplay).
• For this reason, we agree that if a card is visible in someone else's non-Finesse Position, then Priority Finesses are turned off and the team is committed to give a direct clue to the next card.
• This clue is similar to a Fix Clue, since it fixes an impending misplay from a situation that looks like a Priority Finesse. But we specifically call this kind of clue a Load Clue to differentiate it from a Fix Clue that fixes a Lie or mistake. It is a Load Clue because it is loading the player who received the clue with something to do on their turn.
• For example, in a 3-player game:
  • Red 1 and blue 1 are played on the stacks.
  • Alice has a choice between playing a known red 2 or a known blue 2. The red 2 has Priority because it is the leftmost card.
  • Alice plays the blue 2.
  • Bob sees that Cathy's hand is as follows, from newest to oldest: yellow 4, yellow 3, yellow 4, red 1, blue 3.
  • Bob sees that Cathy will think that Alice is performing a Priority Finesse on the blue 3. Thus, Bob must now give a Load Clue to stop the impending misplay.
  • Bob clues number 3 to Cathy.
  • Cathy is surprised - she was about to play her Finesse Position card as a blue 3, but she now knows that it can't be a blue 3.
  • If this was a Fix Clue, Cathy might be inclined to play the card that was closest to her slot 1 (which would be the 3 on slot 2).
  • However, Cathy knows that Load Clues are to be interpreted as normal Play Clues instead of Fix Clues, so she interprets this as a normal Chop-Focus Play Clue and plays blue 3 from slot 5.

• When a player receives a Load Clue, they are to interpret it as a normal Play Clue instead of a Fix Clue.
• A clue is still a Load Clue even if would otherwise look like a Save Clue. (In other words, the card promised from the Priority move has to be somewhere.)
• Load Clues are unique in that they are the only move that violates Information Lock Principle. In other words, when a player realizes that they have been given a Load Clue, they must rewind to when the Priority Move happened, delete all of their Priority-related notes, and then re-interpret the clue from scratch.
• If you receive a Load Clue, you should suspect that you might have something valuable on your chop, as this would be an excellent reason to commit the team to giving the Load Clue in the first place.
• If a player has a choice between playing one card that leads nowhere and playing one card that commits the team to giving a Load Clue, then they are not obligated to choose one or the other - they can choose whichever one is best for the situation.

The Paused Priority Finesse

• For the purposes of Priority, blind-playing a card is the most important thing to do. When players are supposed to be blind-playing a card, they are usually not allowed to perform a Priority Finesse - they must stick to playing the blind card.
• One exception to this is if a player is in the middle of unraveling the layer of a Layered Finesse. Since they have already blind-played their first card in the layer, they have demonstrated that the Finesse was on them, and now everyone on the team knows that the rest of the cards inside of the layer are "gotten" for sure.
• Thus, in this situation, a player can "pause" finishing up the Layered Finesse and play some other clued card to perform a Priority Finesse. This is called a Paused Priority Finesse.
• Note that this only applies when the card that was blind-played was unrelated to the original Layered Finesse.
  • For example, if a player is finessed for both the red 1 and the red 2 and has just blind-played a green 1, then they can perform a Priority Finesse, because everyone on the team knows that the green 1 played as red 1 and therefore that the layer is not yet unraveled.
  • However, if a player is finessed for both the red 1 and the red 2 and has just blind-played the red 1, then they cannot perform a Paused Priority Finesse because they haven't demonstrated to the team that they are still finessed for the red 2.

The Trust Finesse (A Priority Finesse From Playing an Unknown Card)

• According to the Priority rules, if an unknown card is played, no Priority Finesse can be triggered.
• However, even though this is the case, if playing one of the cards over the other would be extremely suboptimal, it should still trigger a Finesse.
• This type of move is called a Trust Finesse to distinguish it from the case where the card is globally known.
• It is also possible to perform a Trust Prompt, a Trust Bluff, and so forth.
• For example, in a 3-player game:
  • All the 1's are played on the stacks.
  • Alice has two playable cards in her hand:
    • One of the cards has a red clue on it. Since it was originally clued as a Play Clue, it is globally known as a red 2.
    • One of the cards has a number 2 clue on it. Since it was originally clued with a Save Clue, it can be any non-red 2. But it is playable because all of the 1's are already played.
  • Bob has a clued and globally known red 3 in his hand.
  • Alice knows that she is expected to play her red 2 into Bob's red 3, because that would be good teamwork.
  • Unknown from the rest of the team, Alice knows from the context of the game that her 2 must be exactly blue 2.
  • Bob has blue 3 on his Finesse Position.
  • Alice plays the globally unknown 2 to cause a Trust Finesse.

Other Priority-Related Conventions

A Priority Flowchart (for Choosing Between 2+ Playable Cards)

Priority can be confusing. Here is a flowchart that shows, in general, which card should be played when there is a choice between two cards.

Priority with Blind-Plays

As stated above, blind-playing cards has the highest priority (because demonstrating that a Finesse or Bluff occurred is very important). However, cards that have an exact identity note on them do not count as "blind-plays" for the purposes of Priority. Specifically:

• After a Gentleman's Discard or a Baton Discard, the other copy of the card has an exact identity note on it. Thus, it counts as "clued" for the purposes of playing into Priority.
• After Elimination Notes have been eliminated from all but one card, the final card has an exact identity note on it. Thus, it counts as "clued" for the purposes of playing into Priority.

Priority with Both Known and Unknown Cards

• To review, if a player has two playable cards, and both of them are fully-known, then they always have the ability to trigger Priority.
• If a player has two playable cards, and only one of them is fully-known, Priority will never be triggered if they play the unknown card.
• But what if a player plays a fully-known card over an unknown card? They can still trigger Priority, but only if the card that was played has lower Priority than every possibility for the unknown card.
• For example, in a 3-player game:
  • Red 2 is played on the stacks. The 1's are played on all of the other stacks.
  • Alice has a globally known red 3.
  • Alice has a 2 of unknown color. Specifically, it can be either blue 2, green 2, yellow 2, or purple 2 (from Good Touch Principle).
  • The rest of the team does not have any clued cards in their hands.
  • Alice knows that red 3 has lower Priority than all of the possibilities for the 2. (All possibilities for the 2 are lower rank.)
  • Alice plays the red 3, which triggers a Priority Finesse on the red 4.

• For example, in a 3-player rainbow game:
  • Red 2 and rainbow 2 are played on the stacks. The 1's are played on all of the other stacks.
  • Alice has a globally known red 3.
  • Alice has a playable blue card of unknown rank. It could be either blue 2 or rainbow 3.
  • Alice knows that the red 3 has a lower Priority than the blue 2 and that red 3 has a higher Priority than the rainbow 3 (because the red 3 is leftmost).
  • The rest of the team does not have any clued cards in their hands.
  • Alice plays the red 3, which does not trigger a Priority Finesse (because the Priority of the possibilities in the superposition are mixed).

Situations Where Priority Does Not Apply

Priority does not always apply. Some common exceptions are listed below.

1) End-Game

• Priority is generally "turned off" in the End-Game, because players often need to play specific cards.
• With that said, Priority can still work if a player plays a card that would be really terrible for the team otherwise.

2) The 4's Priority Exception

• If a player has a known playable 5 and a known playable 4 that leads into their own hand, then according to the above Priority table, the known playable 4 would have Priority. However, this does not make much sense, since the 5 has to be played no matter what, playing the 5 gives the team a clue back, the 4 could be distributed to someone else, and so on.
• Thus, if a player has a known playable 5 and a known playable 4 that leads into their own hand, then the 5 is said to have Priority.

3) Blind-Playing Globally Known Cards

• Normally, blind-playing cards has Priority over everything else.
• However, in some advanced cases, the blind-play does not need to be demonstrated to the team - everyone already has full knowledge of what is going on. In this case, players are supposed to treat the cards as clued for the purposes of finding the Priority. (The Gentleman's Discard on a non-1 is the main move that this applies to.)

4) "Important" Cards

• Normally, cards that are the same rank should be played from left to right.
• However, in certain situations, players can know that some other card is more important than the leftmost card. If a player plays a "more important" card, it should never trigger a "right to left" style Priority Finesse.
• For example, in a 3-player game:
  • In the Early Game, Alice clues number 2 to Bob, touching three 2's on slot 3, slot 4, and slot 5 (his chop). (This is the 2 Save convention.)
  • Later on in the game, all of the 1's are now played on the stacks.
  • Bob has not received any other clues since then - all of his 2's are known playable, but he has no idea what color they are.
  • Normally, Bob knows that he is supposed to play his 2's from left to right. However, he also knows that his 2 on slot 5 is the most important card out of all of them - it was the focus of the original 2 Save by Alice.
  • Thus, Bob plays his 2 on slot 5 first. After that, he plays the 2's from left to right like normal.

Playing Into Someone Else's Hand

• For the purposes of playing into someone else's hand, we only consider what the very next card is, in order to keep things simple.
• For example, in a 3-player game:
  • Alice has a globally known blue 3, red 3, and red 4.
  • Bob has a globally known blue 4.
  • Cathy has a globally known red 5.
  • Here, Alice knows that when playing cards into other player's hands, she is only supposed to consider what the very next card is.
  • Thus, Alice plays the blue 3 into Bob's blue 4.

• The obvious exception to this rule is if one of the players on the team is locked. In this situation, it is better to work towards unlocking that player.