Trick-taking games have various goals, but the basic idea is that at the end of the hand, points are awarded based on the cards that people have collected in the tricks they have won. The two main subtypes types of trick-taking games are those where the results are based on who has taken certain cards in their tricks (as in hearts) and those where the results are based on how many tricks players have taken (as in spades or bridge.) A complete description of any trick-taking game should also contain instructions on who makes the first lead; this can be determined by actions prior to the beginning of the play (as in bridge), who has a given card (as in hearts), or may simply be the dealer or player to the left of the dealer.

The main feature of creights is that nearly every card does something to the game when played, as follows.

• Jacks, queens, and kings do nothing.
• Tens reverse the order of play. Thus, if play is proceeding clockwise, and a ten is played, play then proceeds counterclockwise. In particular, it is now the turn of the person who had last taken a turn.
• Nines are limited wilds. You may play any nine on any card; when doing so, you must name a suit. This suit must be of the same color as the previous suit, not the color of the nine or even necessarily the card before it (if, for instance, the previous card was a nine.) The next player must then play a card of that suit (or another wild.)
• Eights, as in Crazy Eights, are wild. You may play any eight on any card; when doing so, you must name a suit. This can be any suit and as above becomes the new suit in play.
• Sevens force the player across from you to draw a card. If there are an odd number of people, the player nearly-across from you closer in the direction of play must draw a card; for example, in a five-player game, the player two after you in the current direction of play must draw a card. The exception is that if there are only three people, then the player two down from you in the direction of play is the one who gets the card.
• Sixes force you to play again. If you play a six, you must play again; if you have no ensuing legal play, you must draw a card.
• Fives give a card to everyone else, in the order of the direction of play (it will become clear in a minute why the order of drawing is important.) Thus, if play is going clockwise, and you play a five, the player on your left must draw a card, followed by the player on their left, and so on until the player on your right.
• Fours skip the next player's turn.
• Threes do nothing during the play.
• Twos start a crank. During a crank, all rules of play are suspended. Instead, on each player's turn, that player must play a two or an ace of any suit if they have one. If not, the crank ends, and that player must draw a number of cards equal to the total value of the cards in the crank (i.e. two for each 2, and one for each ace.) This counts as their turn, and turn passes to the player after them in the play order, with the normal rules of play back in effect.
• Aces do nothing except during a crank, as above.

In addition to the play itself, there are a few other rules in creights. First of all, whatever card the dealer turns up counts as if the dealer had played it (with play going clockwise.) Thus, for instance, if a six is played, the dealer starts play; if a ten is played, the player to the right of the dealer starts with play going counterclockwise; if a five is played, each other player must draw an additional card starting with left-of-dealer; if a two is played, the deal begins in a crank with value two, and so forth. If an eight or nine is played, dealer must call a suit before looking at his or her hand. In the case of a nine, dealer may call any suit.

Now, with all these rules, you might wonder what the penalty for erring is. The answer is appropriately named dumbass cards. When a player does something stupid, he or she is eligible to receive a dumbass card (given by any other player.) Such events include but are not limited to: calling an inappropriate suit when playing a nine, making an illegal play (such as the jack of spades when the suit is not spades and the card showing is not a jack; you'd be surprised at how often this can happen), being completely unaware that it is your turn, playing out of turn, not calling the suit before looking at your hand on a wild as dealer, and just generally doing anything stupid. As you gain experience, you probably also want to institute the five-second rule, giving a dumbass card for taking too long. We recommend that on a player's first game of creights, he or she not be given dumbass cards, or at least for the first few deals. You do not get dumbass cards for drawing when it is not your turn; instead, you get to keep these bonus cards. This can in fact (if you're clever enough) be a way to trick others into thinking it's their turn, giving them a dumbass card (a useful ploy if someone is about to go out.)

Another miscellaneous rule is the one-card rule. If at any point during your turn other than the beginning you will have exactly one card in your hand, you must say "one card" (or "last card") before making any motion to play cards out of your hand. Failure to do so will result in a very harsh penalty; at your next non-crank turn, you are skipped and must instead draw two cards from the top of the deck. Situations in which this applies include the following.

• You have two cards, and are planning to play one of them.
• You have two cards, and one of them is a six. You are planning to play the six and then your other card, going out.
• You have two cards, and one of them is a six. You are planning to play the six, but cannot play your other card, forcing you to draw.
• You have one card, and it is a six. You are planning to play it, but will be left with no legal plays, not having any cards. You must then draw.

1. You must shuffle the deck. Take the top card, leave it face up, and shuffle the rest of the play pile, placing it face down as the new draw pile.
2. Everyone laughs at you.
3. For your first shuffle pressure, you get five points. Each additional shuffle pressure is worth twice as much as the previous one, so the second is worth 10, the third 20, and so on. Shuffle pressures are cumulative across rounds. If you get two shuffle pressures in the first round of eight, and then another in the round of seven, this one shuffle pressure is worth 20 points, not 5. Shuffle pressures in a round are denoted by a dot (one for each shuffle pressure) next to the player's score for that round.

And that's it for creights. This may seem like a lot of rules, but they can be internalized fairly quickly.
Scoring: As previously mentioned, the round ends when one player is bereft of cards. Each player then receives points for each card they have in their hand (the player going out receives 0); the object is to accumulate the fewest total points in the fifteen hands. In general, the better a card is during the play, the worse it is to have in your hand at the end of the game. The scoring is as follows:

• 8's are worth 50 points each.
• 5's, 6's, and 9's are worth 30 points each.
• 10's are worth 25 points.
• 2's and 7's are worth 20 points each.
• 4's are worth 15 points.
• J's, Q's, and K's are worth 10 points.
• 3's are worth 3 points. However, 3's are very useful. If you have a 3 and another card, you can use it to cover the other card; you then get 3 points for the 3, but no points for the other card; for instance, if you have a 3, a 5, and a 10, you can use the 3 to cover the 5, getting three points for the 3, none for the 5, and 25 for the 10 for a total of 28, instead of 58. 3's cannot cover 8's, and can only cover 3's if they have nothing else to cover (thus, for instance, 33A6 is worth six, since one three covers the six and the other three must cover the ace, while 33A is worth three since one three covers the ace, and the other three covers the first three.) If you are so lucky as to end a hand with only 3's left, you instead get -50 points for each 3; this is the only way to get negative points. If you are so lucky as to have all four 3's, you are promptly thrown out the nearest window. (For a long time, there was a parenthetical comment here saying that this has never happened. Then it happened.)
• A's are worth 1 point.

First, one set of fives is removed from the deck to eliminate excess blood (however, both sets of crank cards are left in, so cranks can now go up to 24 cards.) The other two modifications concern playing identical copies of the same card. If it is your turn, you may play two copies of the same card (provided, of course, that the card is legally playable.) The first copy acts naturally; the second copy, on the other hand, counts as if the next person to play had played it; thus, if it is a seven, the player across from them gets a card, if it is a five, everyone other than them gets a card, and so forth. Their turn is then skipped. Note that if you play a pair of identical tens, the first ten played reverses order, sending it to the player who just played; the second ten reverses order again, though, making it your turn again.

The second case of this occurs when you play a card identical to the card just played. It then remains your turn, and your play (which may be drawing if you have no legal plays) takes the place of the next person's turn. This may be combined with the previous rule, so that you may actually end up taking the turns of the two players after you.

These rules do not apply to sixes; sixes in double-deck creights function just as in single-deck creights.

Barbu: This is the namesake subgame of the overall game, and is quite simple. It is a trick-taking game where the player who takes the king of hearts gets -15, and all other players get 0. In this game, no player can ever lead hearts unless they have only hearts left.
Hearts: This game is quite similar to the traditional game of hearts. It is a trick-taking game, where each heart taken is worth -2, and the ace of hearts is worth -6. Unlike the game of hearts, there is no queen of spades or shooting the moon. No heart can be led until a heart has been played or the player on lead has only hearts left.
Queens: In this trick-taking game, all queens are worth -6 points to whoever takes them. The other 48 cards are worth nothing.
Nullo: The object of this trick-taking game is simply not to take tricks; each trick is worth -2 to its winner.
Last Two: In this trick-taking game, the first 11 tricks are worth nothing. The twelfth trick, however, is worth -10 to its winner, and the thirteenth trick is worth -20. While this may seem simple, Last Two is probably the most complicated of the eight subgames.
Ravage: Also called Ravage City, this is the most unique of the eight subgames. In this trick-taking game, the player that takes the most cards of any one suit gets -36, and all other players get 0. For example, if I have nine diamonds, and no one else has nine or more of any suit (in the tricks we've taken), I lose ("get ravaged"), and take the -36. If two or more players tie, they split the -36 evenly, regardless of how many suits each has been ravaged in.
Trumps: In this trick-taking game, there is a trump suit, which dealer names when he chooses the game, before the doubling round. The object here is simply to take take tricks; each trick is worth +5. Unlike in some other games, if you can trump you must. If you are playing to a trick that has already been trumped, and you can overtrump, you must, but you are not required to undertrump.
Dominoes: Dominoes is the only non-trick-taking game of the eight subgames. In dominoes, when dealer calls the game, he also calls a "pivot card," which is a rank (so, for instance, "Dominoes around the nine.") On each turn (starting with dealer and moving clockwise), a player may either play any pivot card (card of the specified rank), or a card which is of the same suit and either one higher or one lower than a card already played. Aces are always high and can be played only on kings of the same suit (unless they are the pivot card); similarly, deuces can be played only on threes. All cards played are in open view, in four rows (corresponding to the suits) face up on the table. If you cannot play a card on your turn, you must pass. The object of the game is to get rid of all of one's cards first. The first player to go out gets +30 points; the second player, +20, the third player, +10, and the fourth player, 0.

Scoring: Scoring for each of the subgames is as above. After scores for each subgame are determined, the effects of doubling are imposed (simultaneously.) In general, points from doubling outweigh points from the games (which tend to even out over the course of 32 deals), and thus a lot of the strategy lies in knowing when to double. These scores are then added to a running total. As there are a lot of things to keep track of in a game of Barbu, we suggest the following method of keeping score: first, have one column for each player. Mark off eight lines corresponding to the eight subgames, and cross out the appropriate box when the dealer calls the game; this keeps track of which dealers have called (and therefore cannot call again) which games. In each column, also put two copies of the names of the other three players; these stand for dealer doubles, and are crossed out whenever a dealer double is made. Below, simply add the score of each subgame to a running total after the subgame is completed. After calculating each score (modified for doubling), you may want to check to make sure you have it right, as it is very frustrating to complete a game of Barbu only to discover a scorekeeping error which may be unrecoverable. A handy way to do this is to sum the players' scores; this is unaffected by doubling, and thus is only dependent on what games have been played. The total score for each game should be as follows:

• Barbu: -15
• Hearts: -30
• Queens: -24
• Nullo: -26
• Last Two: -30
• Ravage: -36
• Trumps: +65
• Dominoes: +60

First, it is worth noting that only one of the eight games favors having high cards; in six of the games, one wants to avoid winning tricks. The eighth is dominoes, and because of this imbalance one generally calls dominoes with a high hand. While it may seem that trumps is more an escape route for a generally high hand, in these situations it is often better to play a low-risk game such as Barbu; with judicious use of trumps, dealer ought to win seven or eight tricks. An ideal hand for Last Two can also contain many high cards; as long as they're complemented by twos or threes to relinquish the lead, having aces and kings allows you to get control of the hand and play out your problem suits to ensure they are not led in the twelfth or thirteenth trick. Similarly, you can get away with high cards in Hearts; the ideal hearts hand is one with lots of hearts, including some low ones so that you take no heart tricks. Often, you will find that no game is particularly good for your hand; in this case, put on a poker face and call something that is unlikely to hurt you, such as Barbu, Nullo, or Queens. Getting -6 as dealer playing Queens is not nearly as bad as getting -36 as dealer playing Ravage - or probably more, since it is likely that if you have a mediocre hand, one or more of the other players will have a good hand and double you.

The second part of Barbu strategy lies in the doubling. In general, doubling the dealer is best done in games where only one player loses (Barbu, Ravage, typically Last Two) and you are sure it won't be you. But beware on Ravage; you should have in each suit either two low cards (7 or below) or only one high card (9 or above) and one low card. It often happens that each player is confident about his or her hand for Ravage, with the end result that all players end up redoubled with each other. In this case, the player that gets ravaged gets -252, with each other player getting +72. This 324-point swing is the largest possible in any subgame, and the player getting -252 is virtually eliminated from contention. This is also the case in Last Two, with the loser getting -210. So, if you are doubling in Ravage or Last Two, you should be as close to sure that you will not lose as possible. If there is even a hint of a doubt, do not redouble.

Other good games on which to double the dealer are Nullo and Queens. Because these games do not provide large swings, if you think you will take at most three tricks in Nullo or at most one queen, it is probably worthwhile to use a dealer double (and double all of the other players as well.) Never double the dealer on Trumps; even if you have a very good hand, the dealer probably has a better one. Be careful about doubling the dealer on Dominoes; in all likelihood he or she will control the hand, and your one two may come back to haunt you.

The game is largely determined by the doubling. Do not be afraid to double on instinct. Better than instinct, however, is table knowledge; if a player passes, he or she likely has a bad hand, and even if you have a hand that is below average you should consider doubling them. Likewise, if a player doubles you, figure that player for an above-average hand and redouble only if you have a very good hand. Towards the end of the game, if you are losing by a lot you may need to double to get back in the game. Conversely, if you are winning, you don't want to be forced to double the other players when they're dealing, so it is a good idea to get those dealer doubles out of the way as quickly as possible. You should not confine your dealer doubling to hands where you have a great hand for what the dealer has called; if you get no points in the hand, the dealer double cannot hurt you. Otherwise, in the eighth round, you must be forced to double the dealer with a horrible Ravage hand; if the dealer redoubles, you will go down at least -108, even without the other players also doubling. This is quite undesirable.

Putting aside the three cards serves a dual purpose. Not only do these cards determine your bid, but they also provide you with a way to modify your hand. This interplay occasionally results in a sticky situation, especially when diamonds are trumps. In this case, often a player will want to bid low, but will be unable to do so without discarding diamonds that make their hand even worse. A similar situation arises when spades are trumps.

More often, however, you can make use of this by discarding cards of the appropriate rank. It is a naive strategy to always determine how many tricks your hand can take, and discarding the lowest cards allowing you to make that bid; frequently, you can be more sure of making your bid by discarding jacks and queens, or even aces and kings, and making a lower bid than one might otherwise. Discarding high cards also has the effect of disrupting the other players' planning; the vast majority of the points scored come from making one's bid exactly, and if the other players end up taking more tricks than they bid, that's good news for you. Similarly, you want to try to void yourself in a suit if possible (if you have two spades and want to bid 2, discarding both of them and a diamond is preferable to discarding a heart and two diamonds), for this will both provide a trick source and nullify opponents' aces that they are no doubt counting on. Do not be afraid to discard trumps if necessary; this, again, will disrupt opponents' logic.

In the medium-card hands, it becomes likely that a suit will go around at least once before it is ruffed. However, it is still unclear what a high card is; in particular, it is quite difficult to know whether or not you can count on a king for a trick. Similarly, low trumps also become hard to value, as some other player may have high trumps and choose to lead them out. The medium-card hands are probably the most difficult to play, which explains why we offer the least advice for them.

In the high-card hands, you should generally count on any given card being in play. You can also bank on each suit going around twice before players can ruff; consequently, it becomes safe to count kings as tricks most of the time. Trump length presents the biggest problem for bidding; if you have five small trumps, you don't really know how many of them will win tricks. In general, a good rule of thumb is to assume that each trump after the second will win a trick, more if you have high trumps. This is a slight undervaluing of your hand, but if necessary it is much easier to ditch low trumps under high trumps than to be forced to win tricks with trumps you do not have. Obviously, this should be adjusted depending on the number of cards in the hand. At this point, you should also start paying attention to what's been played, as most cards will be in play.

In each case, you should consider how many tricks you will win on a card-by-card basis. Remember, though, that you may end up winning tricks by virtue of other players giving them to you; you should pay attention to bids before yours to see how aggressive the other players will be during the play.

Most of the strategy during the play applies to all types of hands. A good strategy at the beginning of a hand is to play the cards whose value you are uncertain of. Consider the following situation: in a hand of four, you have the ace and four of diamonds, the queen of spades, and the three of hearts, with diamonds as trump, and you have bid two. If you are on lead, you want to lead the queen of spades; if it wins, you do not want to win your four of diamonds, and so you should play the four of diamonds on the next trick (which it will presumably lose.) If it loses, you need to win the four of diamonds in order to make the contract, which will affect your play accordingly.

In general, there are good cards such as the four of diamonds in this example, for which you have a lot of choice over whether or not they will win a trick, and bad cards such as the queen of spades, whose trick-taking value is uncertain. As illustrated above, you want to play your bad cards first so you know what to do with your good cards. In the high-card hands, bad cards are holdings such as Q-10, where you have little choice over how many tricks you will win (with there being significant variance depending on how the other players choose to play the trick); good cards are holdings such as A-K-5-2, which can win zero, one, or two tricks depending on what you need from them to make your bid exactly.

During the play, it helps to be aware of how many tricks the other players have taken, and what their bids are. Let's say you are on the sixth trick of a ten-trick hand, and the first player leads the two of spades; this is the first spade that has been played. The second player follows with the ten, and you are in the third position with Q-4. Will the queen of spades win a trick for you? If the player in fourth position has bid one and already taken one, he is unlikely to play the ace or king if you play the queen. Conversely, if that player has bid three and so far has shown no high cards and taken no tricks, it is likely that they have either the ace or king of spades, and will take the trick (indeed, they may have both.) In this case, if you want to take a spade trick, you should probably play the four and hope to score a trick with the queen on the second spade trick.

Being aware of where the other players stand in relation to their bid also allows you to better interfere with their plans. Suppose there are two tricks remaining, and you have the ace of trumps and the two of another suit, needing one more to make your bid. A trick comes around to you, with the jack of a third suit the highest card played thus far. If the player of the jack needs one trick for their bid, you can prevent them from making their bid by playing the ace of trumps and leading the two (unless their remaining card happens to be either a trump or of the same suit as your two.) If, on the other hand, that player has already made their bid, you should ditch the two, forcing them to take one more trick than they would otherwise want. In general, if you are sure of your bid and just wondering when to take the tricks, you should try to take the tricks that would otherwise be won by a player that wants them.

You should also realize that other players will be trying to do the same to you. This is why bidding zero is difficult in many-card hands; you may have a hand which is unlikely to take any tricks if every player is trying to win every trick, but if you bid zero, the other players will be attempting to force you to win tricks. Perhaps on the fourth trick of clubs, another player leads the three, and you play your last remaining club, the five (having already played the six, eight, and jack.) If the other players were trying to win as many tricks as possible, they would trump here, but if you have bid zero they will gladly discard cards of other suits and give you the trick. Consequently, with holdings such as 8-J, bidding zero is unadvisable as the other players can easily foist a trick off on you.

On each hand, you should also know how many tricks have been bid in all; in particular, whether the total number of contracted tricks is greater than or less than the number of tricks in the hand. If it is larger, players will be more aggressive in trying to take tricks; if it is smaller, they will be less aggressive. In particular, if you are third or fourth to bid and the number of tricks already bid is high, you can bid zero with more impunity, as the other players will doubtlessly focus more on taking their allotment in a time of shortage than on forcing you to take a trick.

Napoleon then chooses one of the fifty-two cards in the deck to be the secretary card. The player who holds this card becomes secretary for the round; this player is on Napoleon's side, and all face cards he collects in tricks count towards Napoleon's total. In addition, the secretary card becomes the highest card in the deck, and is stripped of its suit. The secretary card may be played at any time, even if the secretary has cards remaining in the suit led, and automatically wins the trick. If the secretary card is led, it counts as a trump for purposes of following suit. Note that the identity of the secretary is unknown to both Napoleon and the other players until the secretary card is played. If Napoleon names a card in his own hand as the secretary card, he has no partner (but the card retains all of its value as above.)
The Play: Napoleon makes the opening lead, and play proceeds as an ordinary trick-taking game. If at the end, Napoleon and the secretary together have taken a number of face cards equal to or greater than the number bid, they win; otherwise, the other players win. Extraneous talking is of course allowed, but Napoleon is only allowed to say two things relevant to the game: "Be careful, Secretary," and "Take it, Secretary." The latter comment communicates to the secretary that Napoleon wants him to take the trick, and typically he will play the secretary card. Of course, the secretary may have already played to the trick, in which case the command is useless. As a variant, you can make the command require the secretary to play the secretary card at his or her next turn. The former comment is just a general warning.
Scoring: If Napoleon wins, he gets a number of points equal to the following: 2 if the bid is eleven or below, the bid minus nine if the bid is between 12 and 15, and 10 if the bid is 16. (This is the original bid, and is not increased by 1 if Napoleon changes trump suit after looking at the kitty.) The secretary receives a number of points equal to half Napoleon's total (round down.) If Napoleon names the secretary card to be in his own hand, he gets the secretary's points in addition to his own.

If Napoleon is defeated, each player other than Napoleon and the secretary receives two points. Like Oh Hell, Napoleon scoring systems vary; if you meet someone who knows how to play Napoleon and who did not learn it from this book, they are likely to have a different scoring system.

The game ends when one player amasses a total of 21 points. This number can be changed up or down depending on how long you want to the game to be.
Strategy: In the bidding, it pays to bid aggressively. Having a long trump suit is more important than having exceptionally high cards; long trumps allow you to control the hand. Remeber that as Napoleon, you have lots of things that can go right for you: you may find high cards or trumps in the kitty, defenders may be scared to drop high cards early, or you may end up with a secretary who also has other high cards and can win tricks for you.

As a defender, your task is very difficult, as you do not know who the secretary is. In general, it may very well be the case that your only hope is to discard face cards early in the play, as Napoleon will typically lose his tricks early (as opposed to at the end, when players have probably saved face cards in order to have a chance at winning tricks.) However, if you drop them on the wrong tricks, you may give them to the secretary and doom your efforts; discarding face cards that may win tricks, in particular, is difficult to do, as you're giving the card to someone whose loyalties you are unsure of as opposed to winning it yourself (and you know which side you're on.) Nevertheless, often you must bite the bullet. Especially with face cards which will not win tricks, such as jacks, you may be best served by giving them to another player in a trick, as opposed to possibly having to discard it on a trick of Napoleon's later. One good strategy as a defender is to realize that if a certain player (i.e. one who has already collected numerous face cards) is the secretary, you have no chance at defeating Napoleon, and then proceed under the assumption that that player is not the secretary. Obviously, it behooves you to figure out which player is the secretary as soon as possible; if Napoleon names a high card (as is usually the case), the other players who have been bidding are more likely to be the secretary.

As Napoleon, your first task is to exchange cards with the kitty and then choose a secretary. Generally, it is a good idea to void yourself in as many suits as possible; you should have at least four trumps, including two of the top three. A secondary long suit is better than a balanced hand; after you draw trumps, you can then run the cards in that suit. Don't be afraid to discard singleton jacks and queens, as these will almost certainly end up in the hands of the opponents if you keep them in your hand (and prevent you from trumping that trick.) The secretary card has two purposes; first of all, it gives you an ally, and second of all, it allows you to eliminate a card from the game (remember, the secretary card becomes suitless.) Thus, if you have the king and queen of trumps, and call the ace as the secretary card, your king and queen become the two highest trumps. Generally, you should call the highest missing trump or, if you have no problem with trumps (having the top two and length, or the top three), an ace in a side suit where you have a king (thus making your king high.)

During the play, you want to milk the confusion among the other players as much as possible. Generally, this involves losing your tricks early in the game, where the opponents are suspicious of one another, not knowing which one of them is the secretary. Also, remember that if everyone follows suit, you cannot lose more than four face cards in a given trick; losing these tricks early increases the chance of everyone in fact following suit (and being unable to drop jacks and queens of other suits on the trick.) Save the secretary card as long as possible; invoke it only if you think that the trick being taken contains (or will contain) enough face cards for you to lose your contract, or if the current trick is the last trick you cannot win in your hand. It is far more important for the defenders to know who the secretary is than it is for you to know, and as such this should be concealed as long as possible.

As secretary, you are the only player in the game who must keep a poker face. Try to encourage other players to drop face cards on your tricks early; as defenders will be doing this as well, you should be able to blend in somewhat (don't be too blatant.) In general, you should play the secretary card only when Napoleon instructs you to; he knows what he's doing, and knows where his weakness that needs to be covered is. Of course, if there's a trick with a lot of face cards, you may want to go ahead and take it - especially if you have strength in other suits that Napoleon does not know about (perhaps a side suit ace you want to lead.) A good rule of thumb is that you should reveal the secretary card on your own if and only if you are sure that you and Napoleon will be able to take the rest of the tricks.

The hand ends when someone elects to challenge the previous person rather than name a higher hand. When a challenge occurs, everyone lays down their cards. If, among the cards of all the players at the table, the poker hand named exists, the challenger loses the deal; if the hand does not exist, the player who named it loses the deal. Note that the person on the other side of the challenge gains nothing. The exact poker hand named must exist; for instance, if the hand challenged is "three queens," and there happen to be four kings among the collective cards of the table, this is irrelevant; the challenge fails if and only if there are three queens (including deuces) among the cards in play.

Unlike most games, Liars' Poker specifically encourages cheating. Any trick is acceptable for gaining a glimpse of other players' cards; for instance, you may look over their shoulder or off reflective surfaces. The only thing which is verboten is physically touching their cards.
Scoring: As mentioned before, after each hand the player who has lost gets one fewer card in the next hand. If a player has no cards remaining, he or she is out of the game; as a courtesy, a player who has just been winnowed down to one card is allowed to pick their card out of the fanned (face-down) deck. The goal of the game is to be the last player with cards remaining.
Strategy: Don't be afraid to look at people's cards! The skill in Liars' Poker comes in estimating the probabilities of various scenarios of cards in play based on other people's bids, and the more hard information you have, the better off you'll be. To take an extreme example, if you've managed to peek at everyone else's cards, you know precisely what the cards in play are, and when it comes around to you you know whether a challenge will succeed or not.

If no one looks at anyone else's cards, the amount of information you have is directly proportional to the number of cards in your hand. This means that a player with more cards is less likely to lose a given round, making Liars' Poker a positive-feedback game of sorts. As such, if you and another player have few cards left, it may be quite advantageous for you to combine forces and share your cards with each other; this doesn't affect the procedure of the game (i.e. you still take turns whenever your turn would normally come up), but it gives both of you more information. Coalitions are common, especially when the game is down to three players, at which point the two players who are behind will typically gang up on the player who is ahead. Remember, though, that at the point when your hands are mutually visible, you are potentially quite vulnerable to the sneak attacks of other players' roving eyes. In extreme cases, it may be impossible for you to pick up your cards without anyone else seeing them. Sometimes, it is better to not look at your cards at all, or at least until you have to; low calls will typically not get challenged, since there is little benefit to challenging someone unless you feel that you yourself will get challenged on any higher bid.

It is very important to take other players' bids into consideration. If a player bids three queens, he likely has queens; if you are staring at a queen and a deuce, four queens or even five is a sound bid. (Remember that, at least in theory, the other player made their bid ignorant of your hand.) Conversely, though, it is often worthwhile to bid something you don't have at low levels where you're relatively certain you won't get challenged, in order to trick others. At the beginning of the game, about half the deck will be in play; with the four deuces, a bid of three of a kind will typically not get challenged, so use these bids to your advantage.

It is very difficult to be certain that the player before you doesn't have their bid, and because of the system it tends to be unprofitable to challenge players unless either the odds are extremely against them or you think you will get challenged and lose on any higher bid. In particular, if you bid something that the player in front of you has bid (typically bids go around the circle about twice, so they are likely to have bid something), they will be stuck between a rock and a hard place. In this vein, the player in front of you is the most important one as far as looking at their cards goes; if you can look at their cards without them noticing, in particular, when you bid something they have (especially if they haven't bid it yet), they are likely to think that you have some and not challenge you. Remember, you can't lose if you aren't challenged and don't challenge anyone.

Liars' Poker is essentially a game of psychology. Try to figure out the tendencies of the other players; if someone seems to never have what he bids (everyone's cards are revealed at the end of every hand, so you can actually track this), don't take his bids into consideration. If someone is reluctant to challenge, try to sit behind them. Make deals with people; if the guy in front of you wants to bid something, let him. Try to gang up on the player in front, since his position will only get better as time goes on. Show your cards to other players when it's advantageous to you; if someone is hesitating about challenging, and you don't have any of the cards in question, you can often convince them to challenge by showing them your useless cards, especially if you once claimed to have something useful for the current call. (A better strategy is to get them to commit to challenging if you don't have any before showing them your cards.) Similarly, you can often avoid being challenged (the guy in front of you doesn't want to challenge you since he might lose, but he may not know what to bid) by showing your hand to the person in a position to challenge you; this is a win-win situation, since it gives him more information as to what to bid. In a game with lots of players, team up with people early, and try to bid high enough that the bidding will be challenged before it gets around to you (but not so high that you'll be challenged.) Bid confidently, as if you know what you're doing, even when you don't. Last but not least, don't get suckered in by other people's psychological ploys, like the ones mentioned here.

Unfortunately, employing this strategy requires figuring out what your opponent is going to play. Clearly it makes more sense to play high cards on the cards that are worth more, but there is no specific strategy that can work, since your opponent can always play the above strategy to dominate you. Playing a card one higher than the card up for bids is good, since the natural correlation is to play a card about equal to the one up for bids, but by the same token playing a card two higher is also good, since your opponent is likely to play a card one higher. And so forth. There's obviously a breaking point to this argument, since by playing a card two higher you are essentially conceding the two highest cards, and this will eventually result in a loss.

Don't be afraid to play very low cards when very high ones are up for bid. You'll lose, but your opponent will have expended a much higher card in the process, leaving you with a significant advantage for the remainder of the game. In general, you want to try to lose by a lot when you lose and win by only a little when you win. With more players, the strategy is murkier; assuming you play the main variant described here, it is a reasonable strategy to play your highest cards on mid-range cards (8, 9, 10) and hope that the other players all play their highest cards on higher cards, cancelling each other out. But in general the optimal strategy is obviously highly dependent on what your opponents are doing.

Finally, keep track of what your opponents have played; it's important when you're trying to figure out their decision process.

1. Ask any opponent for a specific card. You cannot ask for a card that is in your hand, and you cannot ask for a card unless you have a card in that suit. For example, to ask for the seven of clubs, you must have the two, three, four, five, or six of clubs (you can of course have multiple low clubs), and you cannot have the seven.
2. If the player asked has that card, they must give it to you. If they do not, it becomes their turn.

Something that is extremely important is to keep control away from dangerous opponents. Your team can conspire to blackball one or two of the opponents so that it is never their turn, and this is often a good strategy. For example, suppose that everyone knows (because they've seen the cards being exchanged) that one of your opponents has the two through six of clubs. He has asked both you and your right-hand teammate about the seven, and neither of you have it. If one of your opponents had the seven, they would declare the suit now, since they know the location of the other low clubs; therefore, your left-hand teammate must have the seven. If the opponent with the low clubs gets a turn, he will take the seven from your left-hand teammate and they will win the suit. If, however, you never ask him a question, it will never be his turn, and he cannot take the suit.

Therefore, you should never ask him a question. It is not permitted to say things like this explicitly; you can't tell your teammates not to ask him, but hopefully they've been paying enough attention to realize what's going on. Of course, your opponents, if they've been paying attention, should know not to ask your teammate with the seven any questions. This is fairly frequent, and is one reason why you shouldn't totally ignore suits even if you don't have any cards in them. Each game is different, and much of the skill in the game lies in figuring out what information is important, since you usually can't remember everything.

If someone asks you about a card in a suit, and you have a different card or multiple cards in that suit, it is often a good idea to ask them about a card in that suit, although this does run the risk of giving away information (namely that you have another card in that suit.) Sometimes the best strategy if you have multiple cards in a suit is to lie low while other people ask about it; you end up with a lot of information, sometimes enough to place the entire suit. For purposes of memory load, you should generally try to clean out suits sequentially, so you have less to remember (since once a suit is out of play you can forget everything you know about it.

If you have all six cards of a suit, or if you know where a suit is, it can on occasion be useful to not declare it. By saving the suit, you increase the chance that other people will ask you questions since you appear to have more useful cards than you actually do; you can also declare the suit at an advantageous moment when it's your turn in order to transfer control to an appropriate teammate. If you have all the cards, there is no risk in holding onto them, since you're going to get the suit eventually. If you don't have all the cards yourself, the risk in holding onto them is that your teammates may ask unnecessary questions about that suit, so it is usually best to declare these as soon as possible. Of course, if everyone knows you have all six cards in a suit, there is no benefit to holding onto them.

If your teammate asks about a suit that you have, be aware! You know that they also have a card in that suit, and so by teaming up often you can tease all the cards from the opponents. In particular, if you don't have the card that they asked about, you can do well to ask for it yourself, since you have a better chance of being correct.

In general, you shouldn't declare a suit unless you are absolutely certain. If your team has all six cards of a suit, they're not going anywhere; the only way your opponents can win the suit is if you declare it wrong. The benefit of declaring earlier is that your teammates won't waste questions asking about the suit, but this is usually small compared to the potential loss of the suit to your opponents. Asking a question is not as big an advantage as you might think, because your opponents get just as much information from a failed question as your teammates do. Note that if you ask a question about a suit that your team has all six cards of, your opponents in fact get no useful information.

There are a couple of exceptions to this rule; the most obvious is in the end-game situation, which occurs surprisingly frequently, where only one team has cards remaining and they need to declare a suit or suits. In this case, you're not getting any more information, so the person with the most information (usually, but not always, the person with the most cards in the suit) should declare the suit. Often this comes down to a 50-50 guess.

A more subtle reason why you might want to declare a suit that you're not sure of is for transferring control. Let's say there are two suits left, the low clubs and the high diamonds. You have the four, five, and six of clubs, and you know that your left-hand teammate has the three. You know that one of your teammates has the two and the other one has the seven, but you don't know which. Your right-hand teammate also has the king of diamonds; your opponent has the other five diamonds, and has recently asked both you and your left-hand opponent for it, so everyone knows where the last diamond is.

In this case, you should guess the clubs. Maybe you could improve the club knowledge if you asked the opponent for the three (and, incidentally, this is in general good strategy when you have all six cards of a suit; you know the questions will fail, but it's the only way to convey information about the suit), allowing one of your teammates to declare. However, if you did this, you would lose the diamonds for certain. A better strategy is to guess the clubs, which you will get right 50% of the time; regardless of success, though, you are out of cards and you can transfer control to your right-hand teammate, who will acquire all the diamonds from the remaining opponent. This gives you the diamonds always and the clubs 50% of the time, which is preferable to the other scenario, where you always lose the diamonds and get the clubs some percentage of the time. (It would have to be 150% for this to be the preferred choice.)

In general, stay alert and you will do well.

The goal of the game is to get four of a kind. Well, not really; the goal of the game is to get four of a kind and convey this information to your partner without letting the opponents catch on. This is where the codes come in. During a game of Spielen, people should be talking. Generally this is just harmless banter, but you're allowed to talk about the game (unlike most games, where table talk is discouraged.) The only things that aren't allowed are "under-the-table" things; you can't kick your partner under the table, or say things in a foreign language that only they understand, or anything like that. All communication must be observable by everyone, although nonverbal communication such as placing your hands on the table, rearranging your cards, and winking is all fair game.

The game usually ends when one person has four of a kind and their partner knows it (because it's been communicated somehow.) At this point, the partner calls "Games" (English for "Spielen.") If their partner does in fact have four of a kind, that team gets a point (and the round ends); if they don't, the other team gets a point.

However, if you think that one of the opponents has four of a kind, you can scoop them by calling "Anti-Games." If you are correct -- if either opponent has four of a kind -- your team gets two points, while if you're wrong the other team gets two points. So the goal is not just to tell your partner that you have four of a kind, but to do so without letting the other people crack the code. You must set all codes beforehand; you cannot confer between deals if your opponents have cracked your code.

But wait, there's more. If you maneuver it so that both you and your partner have four of a kind, either of you may call "Double Games," which is worth two points; again, your opponents get the same number of points for an incorrect call. If you think both of your opponents have four of a kind, you may call "Anti-Double Games," which is worth four points for you if you're right and four for your opponents if you're wrong. This is, of course, exceedingly daring.

In many cases, especially after the code has been cracked, two people may declare at the same time. Whichever team started speaking first has the declaration that is evaluated; if it's simultaneous, then no one gets any points and the round is declared over. The first team to accumulate 6 points wins (for a longer game, play to 11.)

Strategy: Almost all of the strategy lies in concocting codes, although if you're clever you can keep track of cards. In practice, because the game is so chaotic, this is pretty difficult; many players may be exchanging various numbers of cards at once, and certain cards may be picked up off the table before you even really have a chance to see them. Another non-code method is simply to observe whether people are exchanging cards; obviously, if someone has four of a kind they're unlikely to be exchanging any cards, although proceeding from this to a sure inference is tricky.

Codes come in many forms. The more complicated a code, the harder it is for opponents to crack, but as the code complexity grows so too does the difficulty of remembering it. Similarly, you want codes that can innocuously be slipped into everyday life, but the more natural they are the greater the chance that you will slip up and give the code by accident. For example, I once had a code with a partner consisting of all seven-letter words; we must have given the code a million times by accident. In general, things that require a lot of parsing time are bad codes due to the pace of the game. You're not allowed to stop and think during the play; if you're the dealer, you're expected to swipe the cards within a couple of seconds after people have stopped exchanging, and if you're not the dealer, the cards will be swiped quickly so you don't really have time to stop.

Word codes are generally decent: for example, if you say the name of a state. This is, of course, easy to crack, so you might change it to saying the name of a state beginning with a consonant, or one west of the Mississippi, or something. A decent meta-strategy is to wait for some amount of time after the code is given before saying Games; the downside of this is that the other team might say Games in the meantime.

Tapping your fingers on the table is reasonable, but the problem with this and other physical cues is that your partner might not be paying attention to you, and so you may have to give the code repeatedly before they pick up on it. The opponents are likely to pick up on it in the meantime; after all, there are twice as many of them, so if everyone knows the code the chance of your teammate getting it first is only 1/3. And also, it's worth half as much to call Games as it is to call Anti-Games, so having a code that's hard to crack is pretty important, even if your partner doesn't pick up on it immediately.

You should, of course, have several codes, ideally in different media (in other words, a couple of verbal codes and a couple of physical codes.) But the more codes you have, the harder they are to remember; four is probably a reasonable number. Since you can't change the codes during the game, you'll want multiple codes in case some of them get cracked, as well as in case your partner is oblivious to one of them. The game is fast enough that you'll forget things from time to time.