Cheat

The whole deck is dealt out and the goal is to empty your hand. On your turn you play cards face down and claim they are a particular rank — but you do not choose which rank. It ascends by one every turn, from Ace upward through the King and around again, so eventually everyone has to claim something they do not hold.

• The required rank moves on each turn whether you have those cards or not.
• You may play any cards you like face down; the claim is about the rank, not the truth.
• Any player may call the claim a lie, at which point the cards are turned over.
• A wrong call means the caller takes the pile; a correct one means the liar does.
• The first player to run out of cards wins.

• Desktop: click cards to select, click Play; use Call Cheat or Let Pass in the challenge window
• Phone & tablet: tap cards and buttons

• Choose 2, 3 or 4 players against the computer
• Daily and Practice deals
• Online: two-player matches

• Count the ranks as they pass. Because the required rank ascends predictably, you know several turns in advance which turn you will have nothing for.
• Lie early, when the pile is small. Being caught costs you whatever has accumulated, so the cheapest time to be wrong is at the start of a round.
• Play the truth when you hold all four of a rank — nobody can hold a contradicting card, so the claim is unfalsifiable by counting.
• Call when you hold cards of the claimed rank yourself. Every one you hold is one the claimant cannot have.
• Watch hand sizes rather than faces. A player suddenly dumping several cards is far more often bluffing than clearing.

This one has no inventor, no first edition and no settled name, and that is the honest answer rather than a gap in the record. Cheat belongs to oral tradition: it is passed on by being played, which is why people learn it under whichever name their family used.

In Britain it is Cheat. In the United States it is Bullshit, or the politer I Doubt It. The rules travel intact while the title does not — a reliable sign of a game that spread by word of mouth rather than through a publisher.

What every version keeps is the mechanism: cards are played face down, players are allowed and often obliged to lie about them, and any opponent may challenge. Whoever loses the challenge takes the whole pile. The cards are only the medium; the game is really played against the other people at the table.

Cheat is an original free browser take on the classic face-down bluffing card game, where reading opponents matters as much as the cards in your hand. Play instantly, no sign-up.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.