I’m a big fan of poker, and of bluffing games in general. If you’re keeping up to date with me, you know that my next release, which will be on shelves soon, is Cash or Crash, a card-based bluffing game that is an elaboration on the basic concept of the classic Liar’s Dice.
This morning, I had an idea for another bluffing game, but one so simple that I could never market it in its basic form, and indeed would be surprised if I turned out to be the first to have come up with it. I haven’t tested it yet, but it’s one of these games that’s so simple as to be self-evident; it’s probably susceptible to mathematical analysis, but if humans have a hard time playing Rock-Paper-Scissors randomly, I doubt that a computer generated table of optimal move-selection probabilities would help anyone become unexploitable in this game.
I am going to start by explaining the game as originally envisioned, as a two-player game. Additional multi-player rules will be given afterwards – both a simple version, and a more elaborate one. The simple version is much the same as the two-player game, but suffers from the problem of being highly dependent on seating order, and would be too easily abused by colluding players sitting next to one another. The more elaborate version would be much more appropriate for cash play, though of course I cannot recommend gambling if you live in a place where gambling is illegal, or are under the legal age.