Cockroach Poker

Based on the game by Jacques Zeimet

A bluffing game where you're trying not to be the loser. Push unwanted cards on others and avoid picking up too many of any one type.

Setup

Use all 8 suits. From each suit, take ranks 1–8. That gives you 8 cards per suit, 64 cards total.

Shuffle all 64 cards and discard 4 cards at random. No one should know which cards were discarded. Then deal the remaining deck evenly to all players. Players hold their cards as a hand (look at your own cards).

Gameplay

The starting player (the offerer) chooses any card from their hand, places it face-down in front of another player (the receiver), and makes a claim: “This is a [suit name].” The claim can be true or false.

The receiver now has two options:

Option A — Call it

• Say "True" (the receiver believes the claim) or "False" (the receiver thinks the offerer is lying).
• Flip the card face-up.
  • If the receiver was right: the card goes face-up in front of the offerer. The offerer starts the next round.
  • If the receiver was wrong: the card goes face-up in front of the receiver. The receiver starts the next round.

Option B — Peek and pass

• Look at the card secretly (don't show anyone else).
• Place it face-down in front of a different player (not the one who offered it to you, and not anyone who has already seen this particular card).
• Make a new claim about it — the same claim or a different one. It can be true or false.
• That player now faces the same two options.

A card keeps getting passed until someone decides to call it — or until it has been seen by every player, in which case the last receiver must call it.

In the 2-player game, Option B is not available. Every card offered must be called true or false immediately.

Winning

The game has one loser (everyone else wins). You lose if:

• You accumulate 4 face-up cards of the same suit in front of you (5 of the same suit in the 2-player game), or
• You need to offer a card and your hand is empty.
• Optionally: You accumulate 1 face-up card from each suit in front of you. This makes the game more complex because there are fewer scenarios where you are guaranteed to be safe when calling a card.