3v3 Codenames

I never know about picking up rather than just maintaining a list. I’m probably okay with it in this instance.

Yeah, if we were doing better I could see an argument for being conservative. But we're pretty far behind, I don't think we have the luxury.

The more I think about it, the more I’m leaning toward not. What we don’t have the luxury of is gifting blue another word. What do we gain from guessing pupil? Our list is obviously not correct, because he gave us a 2-clue here.

I suppose we could guess pupil because it’ll end the turn regardless. It would be a disaster for it to be blue, and we know it’s not the assassin, but I could see limited risk in bolding. But not zero.

The zero risk option would’ve been Nich clueing unlimited if pupil was red or neutral.

Unlimited would clear our words and a neutral that’s in the way. Since he didn’t clue unlimited, then something(s) on our list is worse than neutral.

If pupil is neutral, there’s no risk to an unlimited clue.
If pupil is ours and shot is neutral, there’s no risk to an unlimited clue.
If pupil and shot are ours and penguin is neutral, there’s no risk to an unlimited clue.
Etc.

But if any of the list runs into a blue word before ending the turn, that’s bad.

Our list also isn’t good enough for him to do a 0-clue, so we could have multiple that are bad.

He needed us to pick up these two. We’ll likely get another turn, and if we don’t then we were never winning anyway because the most we could end this turn with is five. With his third clue, he can communicate more to us about the shape of our list.

If you think it’s too conservative to pass after tooth/tick, then I’ll support you bolding pupil. Just wanted to lay out some of the theory at play here.

We need nine. We have two.

He clued two.

We have to do makeup here. It's our best chance to win.

"Never winning anyway" is the argument for maximal guessing, not passively conceding.

You have to play to your outs.

I think you’re misinterpreting what I mean by “never winning anyway.”

I’m not conceding. I’m saying that, if the most we could possibly get by the end of our 2nd turn is five, and blue wins on their 2nd turn, we never had a chance to win. That’s objectively true, it’s not me giving up.

If we bold pupil and are wrong, our chances of winning next turn become slim to none - because instead of four words, blue now only needs three. Maybe even just two if they have a word of theirs on their list.

I also said that, if you want to bold pupil, then I would support you. So I’m not going to continue the conversation. I’ve laid out my thought process.

Tooth
Tick

Red x 2

Yes, we put a blue word high in our guesses before. I don't think that's reason to completely abandon the clue.

Pupil
Shot
Penguin
Board
Hole

pupil

lineup - 6
bale - 3
bite - 2

Board
Capital
Himalayas
Hole
Leprechaun
Limousine
Mug
Oil
Part
Penguin
Roulette
Scuba diver
Shot
Space
Sub
Web

Police
Band
Tooth
Tick

Shop
Straw
Press
Compound

Pupil

deep - 2

Deep space

Deep hole

Sub
Well
Scuba diver

All have equity too

bump

space
hole
Pass

Sub
Well
Scuba diver

bump

Space blue
Hole red

Will update and clue this evening

A hole in the lineup. I should have gotten that one. Dangit.

lineup - 6
bale - 3
bite - 2
deep - 2

Board
Capital
Himalayas
Leprechaun
Limousine
Mug
Oil
Part
Penguin
Roulette
Scuba diver
Shot
Sub
Web

Police
Band
Tooth
Tick
Hole

Shop
Straw
Press
Compound
Space

Pupil

snow - 3

So that's an n-1.

So line up a shot is in.

lineup 6:

Police
Band
Hole
Shot
xxx
xxx

bite 2:

Tick
Tooth

snow 3:

Himalayas
Penguin
Board

Penguin and Board both work for Snow.

Himalayas
Penguin
Board
Shot
Bottles

I meant to say Penguin and Board both work for lineup. We were guessing Penguin and Board was our runner up.

I’m not saying I think you’re wrong, but I do think it’s worth noting that Nich, the convention king of codenames, surely would’ve noticed that our next three words were shot/penguin/board and would have considered clueing “Everest - unlimited” as the clear 1-clue with a list pickup.

There’s literally nothing else on the board that hits snow at all, much less better than any of Himalayas/penguin/board, so we have to guess those. But it’s a very curious clue and I’m interested to know why Nich gave it.

Maybe he was worried we’d interpret an unlimited clue as meaning we needed to skip shot. But still, very odd given that Himalayas have super strong options for clear 1-clues.