Liar''s Dice Rules
Dice, Dice, Baby
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Liar’s Dice Game Rules Adapted from post by Dice Game Depot There are many names for this popular dice game, such as Doubting Dice, Dudo, Perudo, Mexacali, Call My Bluff, “pirate’s dice,” “deception dice,” and so on, But regardless of the name, Liar’s Dice requires two or more players and is played with a set of five 6-sided dice.
- Show Liars Dice: Equipment: Same as the basic game rules. Objective: Same as the basic game rules. New Rule: After each player's call, 1 die must be taken from the cup and displayed on the table. The rest are rolled again. As the game continues, there are fewer dice with which to 'bluff'. Mafia Liar's Dice: Equipment: Same as the basic game rules.
- Wikipedia mentions that in the game of Liar's Dice common bidding variants, given a previous bid of an arbitrary quantity and face value, include: the player may bid a higher quantity of any particular face, or the same quantity of a higher face (allowing a player to 're-assert' a face value they believe prevalent if another player increased.
- A friend recently emailed me asking me for the rules for 'liar's dice', a drinking game we played while on a ski vacation up at Whistler, BC. Apparently he couldn't find the rules written out anywhere online - all he found was a game called Perudo where everyone had their own die to roll.
Overview
Liar's Dice, or Pirate's Dice, was recently featured in Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest, where one of the intrepid heroes attempts to gamble with his soul against a pair of swashbucklers. I happen to think this particular gambling game is rather interesting, so I decided to write up some stuff about it.
What you need to play:
- 2-3 willing players
- A cup and five dice for each person wanting to play, a Yahtzee set would work great for this purpose
The Rules:
- At the beginning of the game, each player rolls the dice in their cup, and place it flat down to conceal the dice from the other players
- Each player in the game, proceeding clockwise, must make consecutively higher bids or challenge the previous player's bid.
- A bid consists of a number and the value of a die, for example you can bid that there are 'Four Sixes' on the table somewhere, or 'Seven Fives' or 'Three Ones'.
- For a bid to be higher than the previous bid, you need a higher number or an equal number and higher value. For example 'Three Ones' can be followed by a higher number, such as 'Four Twos' or 'Five Ones' or anything similar. But it can also be followed by a higher value with the same number, 'Three Twos', 'Three Sixes', etc.
- When a bid is challenged, all players open up their cups to reveal all the dice on the table. For example, if you bid 'Three Ones' and someone calls you a liar, your bid is correct if between all the players at the table, there are at least three ones between all the players.
- After a bid is challenged, if it was challenged successfully, the player who was challenged loses a die. If the challenge fails, the challenging player loses a die. Whichever player lost a die bids first to offset their disadvantage.
Examples:
Try it out yourself, you can play a version of the game on the official Disney website.
Jack, Will, and Davy all roll their five dice and place them under a cup.
Davy Has: 2, 2, 5, 5, 6
Will Has: 2, 1, 4, 3, 1
Jack Has: 1, 5, 3, 2, 3
- Davy starts the bidding with 'Two Twos'.
- Will has to bid something higher, so he bids 'Three Twos'.
- Jack has a two himself so he bids 'Four Twos'.
- Davy calls Jack a Liar and challenges the bet. All the dice are shown, and there are four twos on the table. Davy loses a die, and Jack gets to bid first in the next game.
Jack Has: 6, 6, 2, 4, 3
Will Has: 2, 1, 4, 3, 1
Liar's Dice Rules Printouts
Davy Has: 3, 3, 6, 5
- Jack decides to take a risk and bids 'Two Fours', hoping that another player will have a four if he gets challenged.
- Will has a four himself so he decides to raise the bidding up to 'Three Fours'.
- Davy doesn't have any fours and he doesn't feel confident that there might be four of his threes, so he decides to challenge Will's bet by calling him a liar. All the dice are shown, and are only two fours on the table. Will loses a die, and Davy gets to bid first in the next game.
Play continues until only one player has any dice remaining, at which point that player is the winner. The starting bid can be any denomination, from 'One Three' to 'Five Sixes' if you feel really lucky.
Strategy
- For any particular game, there will be a best possible bid that can be made. For example, in the previous game, 'four threes' is the best possible bid, there's no number which can be bid over that one without making you a liar. As the bidding escalates, you want to be in a position to either bid that number or call someone else before you get there.
- Since the other players have to base their estimation of the dice on what you bid, if you can get away with a bluff in the early rounds you can affect their estimates on the dice on the table. For example, in a two player game, if you bid two fours when you have none, and the next player bids three fours, you can call them on it right away.
- It may be in your best interests to 'jump the bid' on occasion, for example if you have three fours you may want to start the bidding at that value, rather than starting with one four and waiting for the bidding to get back to you, in the hopes that the other players won't be make it all the way around before it's your turn again without lying.
General Strategy:
The following table lays out the odds of a particular die showing up under one of the other player's cups depending upon how many dice are still in play. For example, at the start of the game, the odds of any of the other players having one six is 83.8%, and the odds of any of the other players having two sixes is 51.5%.
Similarly, if you're playing against 1 player, and he has all five dice left, the odds of him having 1 six is 59.8%, the odds of him having 2 sixes is 19.6 %, and the odds of him having three sixes is 3.5%. So you'd be relatively safe in bidding one more six than you have. (e.g., if you have 1 six you might bid two and hope he'll have another one)
| Odds of matching a particular die | 1 die to match | 2 dice to match | 3 dice to match |
| 10 dice remaining | 83.8% | 51.5% | 22.4% |
| 9 dice remaining | 80.6% | 45.7% | 17.8% |
| 8 dice remaining | 76.7% | 39.5% | 13.5% |
| 7 dice remaining | 72.1% | 33.0% | 9.6% |
| 6 dice remaining | 66.5% | 26.3% | 6.2% |
| 5 dice remaining | 59.8% | 19.6% | 3.5% |
| 4 dice remaining | 51.8% | 13.1% | 1.6% |
| 3 dice remaining | 42.1% | 7.4% | .5% |
| 2 dice remaining | 30.5% | 2.8% | 0% |
| 1 dice remaining | 16.7% | 0% | 0% |
Alternate Rules
Summary of the Game Played in POTC:Dead Man's Chest
Arrrr, thar be spoilers ahead, matey!
The Stakes
Davy Jones is wagering the key to his heart, so to speak.
Will Turner is wagering an eternity of servitude aboard the Flying Dutchman.
Bill Turner is matching Will Turner's wager, he currently owes a debt to the Dutchman of at least 90 years of service.
Liar's Dice Rules
If Will or Bill loses, the Dutchman gains the loser's soul for eternity. If Davy loses, the Turners gain control of the key. Will and Bill aren't in a position to exchange information or collude together unfortunately.
The Dice
Davy's Dice: 5, 4, 5, 5, 5
Will's Dice: 5, 5, 5, 1, 2
Bill's Dice: 3, 2, 3, 2, 2
Davy has the strongest roll with four of the same die to cushion his bets. The best possible bid is seven fives.
The Bids:
1. Bill bids three twos. This, strictly speaking, is the only honest bid of the entire game, since this is the only time any player bids when he knows for sure that he can make his bid.
2.Davy bids four fours. A flat out bluff, if Davy had been called at this point he would have lost. He has only one four to back his bid up with.
3. Will bids four fives. A fairly safe bet, he's counting on at least one other player having a five should he get called a liar.
4. Bill bids six threes. Bill exaggerates the strength of the threes in his hand while hoping Davy will take the bait and make a strong threes bid on top of his. Since it's a bluff Bill would have lost had he been called.
Liar's Dice Betting Rules
5. Davy bids seven fives. And at this point, Davy has hit the best possible bet in the game by adding what he guesses are Will's three fives to his own.
6. Will bids eight fives. Will's on shaky ground at this point, hoping there are more fives out there than the ones Davy was betting on. Bill looks at Will at this point and figures Will is going to lose since Bill knows he doesn't have any fives to add to the pool.
7. Bill bids twelve fives. Bill ups the bidding to a ridiculous level to make sure Will won't lose the game. Bill knows for a fact that there can't be twelve fives on the table since he has five out of the fifteen dice in his possession. Bill simply figures that it doesn't matter what he bids at this point, so he'll take the bid and lose the game.
8. Davy calls Bill a liar. The dice are shown, there are only seven fives on the table, so Bill loses and Will gets to walk away.
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