This post is a short chrono-logue about my time with the card game Hanabi, which I play with the H-group. Thus, it’s also implicitly an advertisement for why I enjoy the game Hanabi so much.

I think the progression is a bit interesting because it can be divided into almost discrete “stages”, with each stage feeling really different from the last.

0. Casual in-person play: a memory game

Like many other people in my age group, I first met the card game Hanabi in-person at some summer math camp or other (either MOP or SPARC?). The rules are pretty simple to explain, so it’s popular. But we didn’t have much strategy behind it. We had the idea that we played from left to right, a clue means “play all”, and some form of a Finesse-type blind play.

That meant the game felt kind of like a …