Perudo is the original version of Liar’s Dice. The game was reinvigorated by its appearance in Pirates of the Caribbean where the stakes are undead service to Davy Jones.
My family plays this game whenever we get together because you can play with as many players as you have. It works just as well with 10 players as it does with 5. (We don’t play for undead service, just for glory).
The original rules are slightly different than the Pirates version. Each player rolls their dice inside their cup. You can look at your own dice, but not others. A player starts by saying how many dice of a type are under all the cups. (1s are wild.) For example, I would start and say 3 fives. The next player has to either increase the amount of dice or the number of the dice. He could say 4 fives, or 3 sixes, or anything higher than those.
If the next player doesn’t think that there are as many dice as the player just stated, they say “Dudo” which means, “I doubt”. Then if there is the stated amount, the doubter loses a dice. If not, the doubtee loses a dice.
You keep going until someone has one dice, and the rules change slightly. At that point, the person with 1 dice always starts the round, and no one else is allowed to change the type of dice, only the amount of dice. (once multiple players have 1 die, they can change it, but no one else can.)
Here is the strategy:
- Play the probabilities
- Play safe, but bluff
- Force situations 2 away from you
- When down to 1, bluff, but control the game
Play the Probabilities
You have some information about the game based on what you have rolled. Think about how many dice there are in play (suppose 20 for the example). Suppose you rolled two sixes. There are 15 dice you don’t know the result of, but on average, there should be 1/6 X 15 other sixes, plus 1/6 X 15 other ones (wild). This means there should be 5 other sixes on average. So you can guess up to 7 sixes.
Now, you know there should be about 7 sixes. There may not be, but you want someone else to get out, so play a little safe and call 5 sixes. The next person should probably say 6 sixes, and the person after says 7 sixes. At that point, the next player has a tough decision. There should be 7 sixes, but are there really? You have set them up so that someone will call it when it is not next to you.
You could probably even say 6 sixes and be safe, especially if you take into account how the other players react to you saying 5 sixes. If people are surprised, you may need to back down your number. Read people’s faces when you call things and try to figure out what they have.
Down to 1
Once you are down to 1, you don’t have much of a chance of winning, but you can send a lot of other players down to Davy Jones locker with you. If there are a lot of other dice in play, say 2 or 3 of the dice that you have. If not, just say exactly what you have. You don’t want to get out because you bluffed when you didn’t need to.
Once the other players have whittled down their dice, you will be facing other players at 1 dice. It becomes a luck game on who rolls the highest dice. If you roll a six, and they roll a 3, you say 1 six, and they have to say 2 of something. If you role something really low, there may be a benefit to saying a higher number and try to guess what they rolled, but it is a 1/5 chance of getting it.