Liar's Dice

The Liar's dice is a variety of dice games that can be played by 2 or more players. These games are also known as Liar dice. The games are fairly easy to learn, requiring very little equipments, and can be easily played as drinking or gambling games. The ability to trick the opponents as well as to detect any attempt of deception by the opponent players are the main prerequisites that are needed to play this game well.

The game of Liar's Dice was originated in South America. It was then popularized by the Spaniards. The renowned Spanish conqueror by the name of Francisco Pizarro brought the game to Spain in the 16th century. The game later achieved greatly popularity with the masses in Hong Kong as well as in mainland China. Many Chinese bars and clubs arrange for dice and cups for their visitors to play a friendly game of Liar's Dice.

Strategy in Liar's Dice

A game of Liar's Dice involves various intricate subtleties and requires many interpersonal skills that are similar to numerous bluffing games like Poker. Even though individual varieties of Liar's Dice games vary in their strategy, there are some common forms of strategic moves that are universal for all forms of Liar's Dice games.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is that a bid played by one player provides valuable information about that player to the other players at the table. The players reveal their confidence on each of the face values rolled through subsequent bids. A player with 2 or 3 of a given face value under her or his cup can make a bid that favors that face value. The players can use the bids to form an idea about the unknown values. This affects their level of confidence in a particular bid that they were considering. In some other instances, a player may consider a certain bid as an evidence of it being true. If the player's own dice status supports the same conclusion, it can increase the bid in that face value. Again, if the dice does not support the conclusion, it may choose to bid on another face value or try to challenge the earlier bid.

A bid can also be a bluff. The bluffs in a game of Liar's Dice are commonly split into 2 main categories; the early bluffs and the late bluffs. Early bluffs are most likely to be corrected by some simple probability, which depends on the total number of players. However, the other players are prone to believe that the bidder settled for that bid because her or his dice supported it. Hence, the bluff generates false information which can make the players bid wrongly on that particular face value. The players will thus try to trick the opponents into overbidding by making early bluffs in order to inflate a definite face value. Late bluffs are generally less voluntary. Often a player is not willing to contradict a bid. However, as one higher bid has more probability to be incorrect, the proposition seems to be even less appealing. Late bluffs are often an essential part of a Liar's Dice game.