Easy games: Liar’s dice

Let’s pretend that you are in your house with two friends and you want to have a good time seeing who’s the first to fell under the table while drinking. A nice way to accomplish that valuable objective is to play Liar’s Dice.

As a game of deception, Liar’s Dice is not for the waek of heart nor liver. The easiest way to play it is between two guys. It can be played by three, but with four it is too fast and not challenging at all: the fourth guy will either win it all or lose it all in just a few rounds.

Let’s describe the gameplay. Each player will be given five dice and a cupboard. Each player will shuffle the dice and put them on the table, hidden from the other players. Then the round of bets start. You can wager a buck, a shot of vodka or any other alcoholic beverage, your soul or one year of servitude aboard the Flying Dutchman. After the bets, the players can look their dice, and then they will call what they think is the total number of dice that match.

The minimum call is one die with one point on top. The second player will then call the player a liar or raise the bet, either by calling one die of two or two dice of one. The third player, in case, will either raise the bet or call a liar, and so one. Thus, the maximum call in any given game will be fifteen sixes. You can’t call a lower quantity of dice or points, so if one player called three twos the next player can’t call two fours nor three ones.

When a player has called another a liar, all the dice will be shown. It the last bet called matches or exceeds the dice, then the player is not a liar and the caller must surrender one die. If the last bet does not match the dice, then the player must lose one die. Then a new round will start until all but one of the players loses all their dice. In the drinking game, surrending one die means you also have to drink the shot of your favourite poison.

Let’s make a quick example. We have Davy Jones, Jack Sparrow and William Turner in a table, playing the game.

Will Turner begins. He calls one three. Jack Sparrow calls two twos. Davy Jones calls two threes. Turner calls three threes, Sparrow four fours, Jones five fours, Turner calls five fives, Sparrow calls seven sixes, and Jones calls Sparrow a liar. So all the players open their respective dice.
Jack Sparrow has 2 3 5 5 6.

Will Turner has 1 2 2 5 6.

Davy Jones has 3 4 4 5 6.

The last bet called was seven sixes, but there are only three sixes on the table. Thus Sparrow is a liar and loses one of his dice.

There are several variants of Liar’s Dice, but this one is the easiest one. I hope you get the idea and start playing with your friends. See you soon and May The Force Be With You.