Normally, players discard their oldest (rightmost) unclued card. However, sometimes a player can know that an unclued card is very important.
A Chop Move is a special kind of move that indicates to a player that the unclued card that is currently on their chop is very important.
After the Chop Move, the player considers the card on their chop to be touched with an "invisible" clue. Thus, their chop will "move" to the next rightmost unclued card.
A Chop Move is permanent, meaning that a Chop Moved card should not be discarded for the remainder of the game.
The three simplest kinds of Chop Moves are listed below. (In levels 6 and 7, two additional common kinds of Chop Moves will be introduced.)
In the middle of a game, if all of the 1's have been played already, and someone clues a 1, this is quite strange. (From Good Touch Principle, players are not supposed to touch cards that have already been played.) In this situation, the 1 is considered Trash.
The clue must have some deeper meaning. We agree that it means that the cards to the right of the trash are important. The point of the clue was to give the player a safe discard.
However, in addition to giving a safe discard, it should also Chop Moveall of the cards to the right of the trash.
For example, in a 3-player game:
All of the 1's are played.
Bob has a completely unclued hand.
Alice clues number 1 to Bob, which touches a 1 in his slot 4.
Bob Chop Moves his slot 5.
Bob discards the 1.
Bob's chop is now his slot 4.
Most of the time, the Trash Chop Move is done for a single card (meaning that the trash card that was clued was one-away from chop). However, you can also use the Trash Chop Move to Chop Move multiple cards.
For example, in a 3-player game:
All of the 1's have been played on the stacks.
Bob has a completely unclued hand.
Alice clues 1's to Bob, which touches a 1 in his slot 1.
Bob Chop Moves his slot 2, his slot 3, his slot 4, and his slot 5 (a quadruple Chop Move).
Bob discards the 1.
Bob's chop is now his slot 1.
Trash Chop Moves are most commonly performed with a number 1 clue because it is likely that in the middle of a game, all of the 1's will be already played. But it can also be performed with a number 2 clue if all the 2's are already played or accounted for. Or, it can be performed with a red clue if all red cards are already played or accounted for. And so forth.
Strategically, the Trash Chop Move is used for two main reasons:
Sometimes there are multiple critical cards in a row on chop and it falls to one player to save all of them. In this situation, a multiple-card Chop Move can be the only way to save all of them.
Some unplayable cards (e.g. a one-away-from-playable 3) are quite useful to the team, but are illegal to touch directly (as touching them directly would be a Play Clue on the unplayable card). If the game is going well, then it can be useful to "waste" a clue to save the card permanently.
Note that you are not allowed to Trash Chop Move a card that you can just clue directly with a Save Clue (unless there are multiple critical cards in a row on chop and you have no other choice). This is because having some positive information is always better than having the card be a mystery.
If a Trash Chop Move touches multiple trash cards, then it only Chop Moves the cards to the right of the rightmost trash card.
For example, in a 3-player game:
All the 1's are played on the stacks.
Bob has a completely unclued hand.
Alice clues number 1 to Bob, which touches a 1 in slot 2 and a 1 in slot 4.
Normally, we are only allowed to save 5's that are on chop, with the special move called the 5 Save.
Additionally, 5's can also be saved indirectly with the special move called the 5 Stall, which can happen in the Early Game and in other "stalling" situations.
So, if a number 5 clue is performed on a 5 that is not on chop, and it is not a stalling situation, then it will normally look like a Play Clue on that 5.
However, if a 5 is exactly one-away from chop, then we agree that it has a special meaning, and that the clue is not a Play Clue at all.
Instead, we agree that the clue is a 5's Chop Move, and the player should Chop Move the card to the right of the 5 (similarly to the Trash Chop Move).
For example, in a 3-player game:
All the 1's are played on the stacks.
Bob has a completely unclued hand.
Alice clues 5's to Bob, which touches a 5 on slot 4.
Bob Chop Moves his slot 5 card. Bob's new chop is his slot 3.
Similar to the Trash Chop Move, if a 5's Chop Move touches multiple 5's, then it only Chop Moves the card to the right of the rightmost 5.
For example, in a 3-player game:
All the 1's are played on the stacks.
Bob has a completely unclued hand.
Alice clues 5's to Bob, which touches a 5 in slot 2 and a 5 in slot 4.
Bob onlyChop Moves his slot 5 card. Bob's new chop is his slot 3.
Note that the 5's Chop Move is different from the Trash Chop Move in that you can only chop move one card with it. Thus, if you clue a 5 and it is two (or more) slots away from the chop, then it is a Play Clue on the 5.
When counting how far away from chop a card is, you should only look at unclued cards.
Remember that 5 Stalls take precedence over 5's Chop Moves. Thus, if a number 5 clue could just be a 5 Stall (e.g. it is the Early Game), then it does not Chop Move anything.
Technically, one could try to analyze whether a clue is a 5 Stall or 5's Chop Move by looking at whether the clue-giver had a different clue to give, since 5 Stalls are only permitted if all "normal" Play Clues and Save Clues have been extinguished. However, this analysis relies on asymmetric information, and can be confusing even for experienced players. So, this move is not introduced until level 19.
We agree that unknown 1's are supposed to be played in a particular order. If a player has unknown 1's and does not play them in the correct order, it means that they are trying to send an additional message.
If a player skips over one of the 1's, and there is nothing else special going on, it means that the next player should Chop Move one card.
If a player skips over two of the 1's, the message skips over the next player, and the player after that should Chop Move one card.
A skip of three 1's means that the player three seats away should Chop Move, and so on.
For example, in a 3-player game:
It is the first turn and nothing is played on the stacks.
Alice clues Bob number 1, which touches three 1's. They are in slot 1, slot 2, and slot 3.
Bob is expected to play slot 3 (which is the oldest 1). If he plays slot 3, nothing special happens.
If Bob plays slot 2, then he is skipping over one card. Cathy should Chop Move one card (her slot 5).
If Bob plays slot 1, he is skipping over two cards. Alice should Chop Move one card (her slot 5).
If a player decides to do an Order Chop Move, on their next turn, they should revert to the original order again.
For example, continuing from the previous example:
Bob decides to play slot 2, performing an Order Chop Move on Cathy.
Cathy marks her slot 5 card as being Chop Moved. Then, Cathy gives an unrelated clue.
Alice gives an unrelated clue.
Now, Bob has two 1's left in slot 2 and slot 3.
Bob is expected to play slot 3 (which is the oldest 1). If he plays slot 3, nothing special happens.
If Bob plays slot 2, he is performing another Order Chop Move, and Cathy should Chop Move one card. (It would be her slot 4, since her slot 5 is already Chop Moved.)
There are some other common situations that do not imply an Order Chop Move. Use your common sense! Here is a short list:
The 1 that was played has a different amount of positive clues than the other 1's. (Different negative clues are ignored.)
The 1 that was played was originally Finessed from a clue that happened before the number 1 clue.
The 1 that was skipped over is known to be bad from contextual information.
The Order Chop Move only applies to 1s. If it happens with any card that is not a 1, then it is never an Order Chop Move and it just means nothing.
For max level players, there is a rare situation where a Double Order Chop Move can happen.
Once a card has been Chop Moved and is no longer in danger of being discarded, it is treated as an already-clued card with regards to new clues given to that hand.
For example, in a 3-player game:
All of the 1's have been played on the stacks.
Bob has a completely unclued hand.
Alice clues number 1 to Bob, which touches a 1 on Bob's slot 4 as a Trash Chop Move.
Bob discards the 1.
Bob's chop is now his slot 4.
Cathy clues blue to Bob, which touches his slot 1 (the card he just drew) and his slot 5 (the card that was just Chop Moved).
Bob knows that the focus of the clue is always on the new card introduced. Therefore, the focus of the clue is on slot 1.
Thus, Bob will play blue 2 from slot 1 on his next turn.
The exception to the above rule is if a clue is given that touches a Chop Moved card for the first time and only "old" cards are touched. In this case, the focus is on the leftmost Chop Moved card that was touched by the clue.
For example, in a 3-player rainbow game:
All the 2's are played on the stacks.
Bob has an unknown red card on slot 3, an unknown red card on slot 4, and a Chop Moved card in slot 5 (that is completely unclued).
Alice clues blue to Bob, which touches slot 3, slot 4, and slot 5. (Slot 3 and slot 4 are "filled in" to be rainbow cards and slot 5 is now a true blue card.)
Bob knows that the focus of the clue is normally on the new card introduced, but all three of the cards that were touched were "old".
Bob knows that when old cards are re-touched, the focus of the clue is the leftmost of those cards.
However, Bob also knows that this is the exception to the rule. In this specific case, putting a positive clue on the Chop Moved card was more important than filling in the rainbow cards, so by convention the focus of the clue is his slot 5.
Chop Moves interact with Prompts & Finesses in a potentially confusing way. Chop Moved cards should not be played into Prompts, even though Chop Moved cards are imagined to have an "invisible" clue on them.
For example:
All the 1's are played on the stacks.
Bob has no cards clued in his hand, but he is Chop Moved for a mystery card on his slot 5.
Alice clues Cathy red, which touches a red 3.
Bob knows that he is promised the red 2. If this is a Finesse, then he has the red 2 on his Finesse Position (slot 1).
However, Bob is also Chop Moved for a card. Bob knows that Chop Moved cards have an "invisible" clue around them, and Bob also knows that Prompts are said to take precedence over Finesses.
So should he play his slot 1 as a Finesse or his slot 5 as a Prompt? Bob knows that Prompts do not apply to Chop Moved cards, so Bob should play his slot 1.
Often times a player can misinterpret a clue as a Chop Move when it really had some other meaning. If this happens, after they discard their new Chop, everyone else on the team will know that an accidental Chop Move has occurred.
Later on in the game, sometimes a player in this situation will realize that they have made a mistake by Chop Moving earlier on. They might be tempted to shift their chop back to where it is supposed to be.
However, unless they discard a critical card (see the above section), players should never undo a Chop Move, because they could be discarding a now-critical card that was not critical at the time of the original mistake. Everyone else on the team did not bother to clue the now-critical card, because they thought it was safely Chop Moved.