# Rationale

Played 2p and been in a situation where one player has way too many plays? That player just keeps on saving their partner, wasting time! 1's OCMs feel super good for this reason. What if this was taken to its logical extreme?

Did your partner just discard when they already have 4 clued cards? Wouldn't it be nice if you could lock them just by discarding? Then they would have the maximum number of clues to use!

# Definitions

## Notes that can go on a card

cm: Chop moved.
PTD: Permission to discard. This system can put PTD notes onto cards. We assume hard PTD (for now).

## Terms

Chop: Card to the left of all PTD notes, or oldest unclued, non-cm'd card
Safe action: A known play, known trash, or card with PTD

# Principles

## 2 safe action principle

We like to have 2 safe actions on each turn, as much as possible. Free choice is powerful!

# Conventions

## Non-clue actions

### When you have 2+ safe actions

We assign an order to your safe actions. We divide actions into tiers, with an ordering within each tier.

1. Play/Gentleman's Discard cards, from right to left (TODO more complex priority)
2. Discard explicitly known trash, right to left
3. Discard conventionally promised trash, right to left (TODO maybe merge with 2?)
4. Discard card marked PTD, right to left

Taking your 1st safe action marks PTD on your partner's chop.

Taking your 2nd safe action cm's your partner's chop, and marks PTD on the card to its left (if it exists).

In general, taking your Nth safe action cm's (N-1) cards and marks PTD on the card to the left.

### When you have 0 or 1 safe actions

You might have to give a stall clue. Taking your only safe action still gives PTD on your partner

### 0 or 1 safe actions at 0 clues, and partner has only 0 or 1 safe actions

(This section is a work in progress)

This situation is very unsafe and may require a possibly-unsafe sacrificial discard.

If you have 1 safe action:
- Take your action: PTD
- Sacrifice worst card: cm your partner

If you have 0 safe actions:
- Sacrifice worst card: PTD
- Sacrifice 2nd-worst card: cm your partner

(TODO) define worst

### 2-action limit

Your 1st safe action does not have any meaning (neither PTD nor cm), if:

- Your partner already had 2+ safe actions, or you know that your partner will have 2+ safe actions after your play/discard
- You didn't have a free choice between two actions in the same tier

(Concern: this can lead to desync due to one player forgetting and thinking they got a PTD note when they didn't)

#### Rationale

Excessive marking of PTD can become a problem due to the chop moving excessively. This carries a serious risk of desync.

## Clues

### Color clues, newly touching

Color clues are Play clues, using H-group-like focus (TODO modify?): the target is the chop, if touched, otherwise leftmost unclued, non-cm'd card. Color clues touching only cm'd cards get the rightmost.

NOTE: the H-group focus rules turned out to be very unintuitive, because chop was defined as the card to the left of all cards with PTD.

### Color fill-ins

A color clue filling in unplayable card(s) in a non-stalling situation is a bluff. The clue receiver plays slot 1.

### Rank clues, newly touching

A rank clue saves the rightmost touched card, and gives PTD on the remaining non-cm'd cards to its right.

(This convention also applies to Rank stalls.)

(May want to use Ref Sieve-like rank clues. I'll call them Chop Adjustment clues.)

### Rank fill-ins

A rank clue touching only clued and cm'd cards gives PTD on the receiver's whole hand.

### Stalling

If you must give a stall clue, you can
- Give a conventional Rank clue
- Give a clue touching only clued and cm'd cards as a fill-in / burn. This gives PTD on the rest of the clued player's hand.

## Additional clue conventions

### Direct Rank play clues

A Direct Rank clue is a Rank clue where all cards of that rank are currently playable.

The clue is a right-to-left play clue. Any excess cards are conventionally promised trash when the clue is given.

The clue does not necessarily give PTD on all cards to its right, like a conventional Rank clue, due to the Doubly-Loaded Exception; it only gives PTD until 2+ safe actions are reached. For example, an opening clue of two 1s would not give PTD at all. (I guess this means it only gives PTD on at most 1 card?)

(Super unintuitive. Will probably change)

### Touching cards marked PTD with clues

(TODO more explicit rules) For now, we assume cards marked PTD that get touched by a clue are bad and should be ignored, unless there is a clear contradiction or immediate DDA risk.

### Dupe Risk cm

(TODO: feels kinda ad-hoc)
If a player gives a Play clue that could duplicate a known-playable card in their hand, the clue receiver should cm ~~once~~ a number of times equal to the Tier 1 chop moves the cluer could have performed. This cm does not extend past the rightmost clued card.

### Redundant Save cm

(TODO: I'm just copying Jeff's Score Hunting Guide now)
hmmmm

### NOTE

As seen here, a rank clue is often very redundant because of the amount of chop moves possible. It would be nice if rank clues were more natural, such that they mean the same thing no matter how many chop moves a person can give.

## Additional play/discard conventions

### Gentleman's Discards

Defined as the discard of a playable card.

These apply only to clued and chop moved cards. (TODO What about Baton discards?)

### DDA

TODO

### Overflow Chop Moves

These could get plays! (TODO)

### Bombs

Bombing a card generally indicates a play of slot 1.

#### Rationale

We generally can chop move whatever cards we want without bombs, so bombing should generally indicate a play.

## Other conventions

### Good Touch Principle

We have good touch principle (TODO)

### The Early Game

The early game is defined as the period before you receive your first safe action of the game. A maximal chop move on you does not give PTD in this case (? TODO).

### Opening 4's clue

Maybe such a clue indicates a discard on the 4's, and marks the rest of the hand as 235 + cm? TODO