Liar's Dice

Players and equipment

Two to six players, five dice and a cup each. A bluffing game about everybody's dice at once: you can see five of them, and you are betting on the rest.

No cups? Use the dice on your phone. Switch the cup on, roll, and your dice land hidden. Hold them to peek, and lift the cup when somebody calls.

The deal

No deal. Everybody shakes, slams the cup down, and peeks at their own dice only. Anyone may open the first round.

Play

The first player bids: a quantity and a face — "four threes" — claiming that many of that face exist under all the cups on the table combined. Each player in turn must raise the bid — more dice, or the same number of a higher face — or call the last bidder a liar. "Four fives" beats "four threes"; "three sixes" does not, because it claims fewer dice. A bid does not have to be true — it only has to survive the next player.

On a call, every cup lifts. Count the face across the table; where the table plays ones wild, they count toward any face, which is most of the reason the bids get so tall.

Perudo

Perudo is the South American version, and the one most tables mean. Ones are wild, and a few rules follow from that:

Ones are wild

They count as any face, except when ones are the bid

Bidding ones

Six fours → three ones

Halve the quantity, rounding up

Leaving ones

Three ones → seven of anything

Double the quantity and add one

Calza

Right: win a die back. Wrong: lose one

Instead of calling, claim the bid is exactly right

A bid of ones is a bid on the wild dice themselves, so "three ones" claims three dice showing a one and nothing else.

Scoring

Dice, not points — and losing them is the score:

The bid stands

The caller loses a die

At least that many were there

The bid was a lie

The bidder loses a die

Fewer than claimed

Out of dice

Out of the game

The last one lost

With fewer dice you know less and bluff blinder, which is the game tightening its own screw. The player who lost the die bids first in the next round. On a phone, take a die off with the minus button.

With auto scoring on, the app does the counting: the player who calls enters the bid that was called, every phone lifts its cup and posts its faces, and the app counts the table, says whether the bid stood and takes a die from whoever was wrong.

A worked round

Four players, five dice each, ones wild. Alice opens.

Alice

Bids three threes: two threes and a wild one

1 3 3 5 6

Ben

Bids four fours: three fours, one more wanted from fifteen unseen dice

2 4 4 4 6

Cara

Bids four fives: two fives and a one make three

1 2 3 5 5

Dev

Bids five sixes: two sixes, three more wanted from fifteen dice

2 2 3 6 6

Alice

Every cup lifts

Calls Dev a liar

Count the sixes. Alice has a six and a wild one, two. Ben has one six. Cara has a wild one, so one. Dev has two. That is six on a table where five were claimed: the bid stands, and Alice, who called, loses a die. She is down to four and opens the next round.

Dev was not lying: fifteen unseen dice, each a six or a one about one time in three, is about five more on average, so five sixes merely sounded tall. A game is twenty or thirty such calls, each taking a die off somebody. At this table Cara went to nothing first, then Ben, then Dev against Alice.

Cara

Fourth

First out

Ben

Third

Second out

Dev

Second

Third out

Alice

Wins

Last player holding a die

Ending

Last player holding any dice wins — tap their name. Agree the wild-ones rule and whether calza is allowed before the first bid; both vary table to table.

On SquareScores the game is a knockout: tap a player's name when they lose their last die and they take the place that is the number of players still in, so with four in the first out is fourth. The tap that leaves one player standing crowns the winner in the same motion.

Count what you cannot see

Each die you cannot see shows any particular face about one time in six. When ones are wild, each unseen die counts towards any face about one time in three, because a one or the face itself will both do. So the honest estimate for any face is what you hold plus a third of the unseen dice, or a sixth without wilds. Twenty dice, ones wild: you hold two fours, fifteen are hidden, and about five of those will be fours or ones — seven is what to expect, six is safe, eight is a stretch, nine is a bluff.

Your first bid

Open a little under the estimate, on a face you actually hold. A low opening gives the table room to climb and tells you things as it does: a player who raises on a face usually holds it. Do not open on ones. Halving makes a ones bid hard to raise, a table that cannot raise will call, and so a ones bid is one you have to be sure of.

Raise or call

The bid climbs by one each time round and somebody is going to be caught. At your turn, compare the bid with your estimate: below it, raise with confidence; level with it, raise by one if you hold the face and let the next player worry; two or more above it, call. Never raise past what you believe merely to avoid calling — the next player may call you, and then it is your die. Bluff early, when the true count is probably high anyway and a bid on a face you do not hold is likely true by accident; a bluff late in the round, above the estimate, is the one that gets called.

Playing short

Down to two dice or one, your estimate is nearly all guess and the others know it, so they will raise past you without fear. Open low on the face you hold, and call earlier than you would with five dice — you have less to lose per call and more to lose by being raised into a corner.

Ones not wild

Every face counts for itself, ones included. Bids climb slower — expect a sixth of the unseen dice to show any face, not a third — and the halving and doubling rules go, since a one is just another face.

Calza

Also called spot on or exactly. The player whose turn it is may, in place of raising or calling, claim the bid is exactly right. Right, and they win back a die they had lost, never rising above five; wrong, and they lose one. The bidder is unaffected either way, the cups lift, and the player who called calza opens the next round.

Palifico

Perudo's rule for a player reduced to one die for the first time. They open the next round: ones are not wild, they name the face, and every player with more than one die may only raise the quantity on that face. A player who also holds a single die may change it. Each player gets one palifico round, the first time they fall to one die.

Dudo

The game's name in Peru and Chile, and the word for the call: it means "I doubt". The rules are Perudo's — ones wild, the ones exchange rate, calza — and the two words, dudo for the call and calza for the exact claim, save a lot of pointing.

Common hand

An older version with one set of five dice passed round under a single cup. Each player peeks, may re-roll some of the dice out of sight, and claims a poker-style hand — three fours, a full house — higher than the last claim, true or not. The next player accepts and takes the cup on, or lifts it; whoever was wrong loses a life, usually one of three chips.

How do you play Liar's Dice?

Everyone rolls five dice under a cup and looks only at their own. Players take turns bidding how many dice of one face are on the whole table, each bid higher than the last, or call the last bidder a liar; then every cup lifts and the face is counted. At least as many as claimed and the caller loses a die; fewer and the bidder does. The last player holding a die wins.

Are ones wild in Liar's Dice?

In Perudo, the version most tables play, yes: a one counts as any face except when the bid itself is on ones. A bid of ones is worth double, so switching to ones halves the quantity, rounding up, and switching back doubles it and adds one. Plenty of tables play with no wild dice at all.

What happens when someone calls liar?

Every cup is lifted and the face that was bid is counted across the whole table, wild ones included where they are played. If the count reaches the bid, the caller loses a die; if it falls short, the bidder does. Everyone re-rolls, and the player who lost the die opens the next round.

What is calza in Perudo?

A claim that the last bid is exactly right — not too many, not too few. The player whose turn it is may call it instead of raising or calling liar. If the count is exactly the bid they win back a die they had lost, up to the five they started with; if not, they lose one. It is the only way to gain a die.

How many dice do you need for Liar's Dice?

Five per player, so ten for two players and thirty for six, plus a cup each to hide them under. Short of dice or cups, SquareScores has a dice tray with a cup on it, so each phone rolls its own five hidden.

Is Liar's Dice the same as Perudo?

Yes. Perudo is the boxed name, from the Peruvian game Dudo, and it fixes the house rules: ones wild, the exchange rate for bids on ones, calza, and the palifico round. Liar's Dice is the general name, and a table using it may or may not play those extras.

How many players can play Liar's Dice, and how long does a game take?

Two to six is the usual table and the game works with more if there are enough dice, five a player. Each round is a bid or two per player and then a count, and a player goes out after losing five dice, so a four-player game runs about fifteen to twenty minutes and a six-player game nearer half an hour.