I was introduced to a new game this weekend. It’s called Perudo, sometimes known as Liar’s Dice; you might know it as the dice game they’re playing in Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Evidently there are some other, somewhat more complicated rules that some people play by, but these rules are simple and fun. Try it. The strategy is surprisingly deep and like the Forehead Game, it plays better than it reads. It feels like a more strategic version of the Science Bowl-favorite card game BS.

Players: 2-8 or so, but 4-6 is probably best.

Equipment: Each player needs 5 6-sided dice and a small, opaque cup.

Play time: 20-30 minutes. With more than 6 players, you might want to reduce the starting dice to 4 for everyone to speed the game up.

Play: Choose at random a player to start. Then each player rolls the dice by shaking them in the cup and then turning the cup facedown on the table. The starting player names a number and a rank of dice, for example, “two fives.” This is a statement that the player thinks that between all the players’ collective dice, there are at least two fives. Ones are wild and count as everything.

The next player clockwise must make a similar call, but must increase either the rank of the dice at the same number (“two sixes”) or increase the number at any rank (“three twos.”)

If you bid ones, the bid counts as double in number. For instance, “three ones” can be called over “five sixes” and the next player needs to call at least “six twos.”

After any call, any player may accuse the caller of bluffing (say “lies,” “I doubt it,” “BS,” or somesuch.) When this happens, all players reveal all their dice, and determine whether the call was good (there were at least the called number of the given rank) or bad. If the call was good, the accuser loses a die. If the call was bad, the bluffer loses a die. Then all players reroll their dice and a new round begins, starting with the player who lost a die. Note that the number of dice available in the game steadily decreases as time goes on.

When a player has no dice remaining, that player is eliminated. The last player with any dice remaining is the winner.

Basic Strategy: Your calls don’t have to have anything to do with the dice you can see. As long as nobody is likely to bother accusing you, why give away information? Also, just because you think someone is probably bluffing is no reason to call them on it. Let someone else take that risk if they feel like it. The only reason you should accuse someone of bluffing is that you don’t expect to have a believable call to make on your next turn. Most often, you should probably be calling the person immediately counterclockwise to you, unless the second person back makes a call you believe to be very unlikely and you think the immediate person back has a chance of making a better call.

When it gets down to two players, the strategy gets weird and I don’t understand it very well yet.