Liar's Card: a Version of the Liar's Dice Game For Playing Cards Sets

I like the game of Liar's dice a lot (if you don't remember, it's the one they play in the Flying Dutchman at Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest), but it's too bureaucratic: you need five dices for each player, and dice sets aren't actually that popular.

Playing cards sets are though, so I created this adaptation of the game to be played with cards.

Note: this is a bluff game, and a betting game: you usually play betting something (in the movie, they bid years of servitude in the Flying Dutchman).

You play with any amount of standard sets (2 to 10 and J to A), the more sets the better, and each player draws 5 cards (due to the pigeon hole theorem). The dealer starts drawing by their right, and that's the player that starts playing. One does not shows their cards to the other players. The cards are distributed in four categories:

• Low (2-4);
• Mid (5-7);
• High (8-10);
• Figure (J-A);

Note there are 12 of each category except for figures (for which there are 16).

You play by betting on a minimum number of cards of the category in the whole table (not just your hand). You must raise the previous bid, by either:

• Raising the number of cards;
• Raising the category.

I found that for playing with cards it's much better to disallow raising the bid from low to high directly or similar. So the first bet must be regarding the low cards and you can only raise a category each play (e.g, from low to mid).

Of course, one cannot raise the category but bet a lower number of cards, or raise the number of cards betting a lower category.

When the previous player bets an amount you think it's over the number of actual cards in the table, you call they a liar. Everyone shows their cards. If there's at least the number of cards of the category that player bid, you lose (or he wins). If the player bid more than actual cards of the category in the table, you win (or he loses).

So, for example, the following hands are drawn:

• Gabriel: 🂲 🃅 🂹 🃝 🃍
• Alice: 🃄 🃔 🃕 🂪 🂫
• Bob: 🃂 🂵 🂦 🃚 🂾

Gabriel has one low, one mid, one high and two figures. Alice has two lows, one mid, one high and one figure. Bob has one low, two mids, one high and one figure.

• Gabriel starts betting that there is at least one low in the table (literally the minimum bid).
• Alice, having two lows, raises to three lows.
• Bob raises the category and bets three mids (he's safer with mids, as he has two of them).
• Gabriel raises the category again trying to quickly get to the figures, of which he has two, and bets three highs.
• Alice now is in trouble, as she got only a single high and a single figure. Her bid on three lows gave up the fact that her hand was mostly low. She has the choice of either betting three figures or four highs. She decides on four highs.
• Bob is also in trouble, as he got only one high and one figure. Calling Alice a liar is also risky, as he senses that Gabriel may have lots of highs as he tried to get the betting to there quickly. He bets four figures.
• Gabriel then bets five figures, as he has shown knowledge of high cards in the game, with two figures, five is not uncommon and the other players will probably raise.
• Alice bluffs and raises to six figures.
• Bob, seeing how both of the other players tried to get the betting higher quickly, decides to raise again to seven figures.
• Gabriel, knowing both the other players got only small cards, calls Bob a liar. The players show their cards and Gabriel wons (or Bob loses).

This variant is the one I ultimately choose as the best. You may also try to play with a Spanish set and five categories, but you would need more than a single set to make the game playable.

It may also be interesting to make each player draw seven cards but only choose five to play, as to give them more privileged information regarding the cards that aren't in play. Probably this only makes sense when playing with a single set.