Liar's Dice strategy for beginners

Liar’s Dice looks like a game of nerve, and it is, but most of it is arithmetic you can do in your head. This tutorial teaches you how to play Liar’s Dice well: how to count the dice you can’t see, how to open and raise, when to call “Liar!”, and when a bluff is worth it. Everything here uses the rules of the Liar’s Dice game on this site: 2 to 6 players, five dice each by default, and wild ones unless you switch them off. If you are new to the game, read the Liar’s Dice rules first.

What you will learn

• How to work out what a bid needs from the dice you can’t see.
• A short odds table you can remember.
• Safe opening bids and small raises.
• When to call Liar, and when to keep raising.
• How to bluff with a purpose and read the other players’ bids.

Your first game, step by step

Start a game against the computer at Easy with the default setup: one opponent, five dice each, ones wild.

1. Look at your dice. Say you rolled 1, 3, 3, 5, 6. With ones wild, your 1 counts for every face, so you hold three 3s (the two 3s and the 1), two 5s and two 6s.

2. Count the unknown dice. There are ten dice in play and you can see five of them. The other five belong to the computer.
3. Expect a third. With wild ones, each die you can’t see matches a face, or is a 1, about one time in three. Five hidden dice means you can expect one or two more 3s.
4. Open. “Three 3s” is already true from your own dice. “Four 3s” needs one 3 or 1 among the computer’s five dice, which happens more often than not. Either is a sensible start.
5. Answer the raise. If the computer bids “four 5s”, it needs two 5s or 1s from its own dice, since you hold two. That is about even. “Five 3s” from you needs two of its dice too. Calling Liar on four 5s is a coin flip, so raise or call depending on how the game is going.
6. Watch the reveal. Whatever happens, look at which dice were counted. The ringed and ticked dice show you how the count worked.

The odds in one table

Every decision comes down to one question: how many matching dice are likely among the dice I can’t see? With wild ones, each hidden die matches any face you name about one time in three (the face or a 1). Without wild ones, it is one time in six.

To use it, take the bid’s quantity, subtract the matching dice you hold, and look up how likely the rest are among the hidden dice. A bid of six 4s, when you hold two 4s and ten dice are hidden, needs four more: 44%, a little worse than a coin flip. A bid that needs six more from ten hidden dice is only 8% likely and worth a call.

The simple rule of thumb: your matching dice plus a third of the hidden dice is the number a bid can reach comfortably. Each die above that makes the bid much less likely.

Strategy tips that win games

1. Count what you can’t see, every turn

The number of dice in play drops by one every round, and players drop out. The board on this site always shows how many dice are in play and how many each player has left. Subtract your own dice and you have the hidden count. Do it every turn; a bid that was safe at the start of the game can be wild late in it.

2. Bid on what you hold

When you raise, prefer a face you hold. If someone calls Liar on a bid you made, your own dice count for you. A bid on your strongest face is honest from your side, so the risk is only in the dice you can’t see. With wild ones, remember your 1s: a hand of 1, 1, 4, 6, 6 holds four 6s.

3. Raise in small steps

The smallest legal raise keeps the bid as low as possible for you and hands the next player a bid that is still believable, which makes it harder for them to call. Going from three 4s to three 5s, or to four 2s, is usually better than jumping to six 6s. Big jumps are for bluffs you want to look confident, and even then they hand the next player an easy decision.

4. Know when to call Liar

Call when the bid needs more than you can expect. Work it out: the bid’s quantity, minus your matching dice, compared with a third of the hidden dice. If the bid needs two or more dice above that, a call is usually right. If every raise you could make is even less likely than the current bid, a call is often your best choice too, because the next player may call your raise.

Don’t call early bids just to see the dice. A call that fails costs you a die, and you start the next round, which hands information to everyone else.

5. Bluff with a purpose

A bluff is a bid on a face you don’t hold. It is useful in two ways. First, it can push the bidding onto a face that is good for you later: bid 3s when you hold 5s, then switch to 5s when the bid comes back around. Second, it hides your hand, because the other players learn from your bids. Keep bluffs plausible, a small raise rather than a big jump, and don’t bluff when the bid is already high, because the next player is likely to call.

6. Read the other bids

A player who raises on 4s probably holds some 4s, or 1s. Treat each bid as a weak clue: not proof, since anyone can bluff, but enough to shift your count a little. When two players have both bid on the same face, that face is probably plentiful. When a player suddenly switches faces, they may be weak on the old one.

7. Play the endgame differently

With few dice left in the game, every die is a big share of the total. Expected counts are small, bids stay low, and a single 1 can swing a challenge. Bid close to what you can see and call more readily. When you are down to one die yourself, you know very little, so lean on the other players’ bids.

Common beginner mistakes

• Counting only your own dice, or forgetting that the bid covers the whole table.
• Forgetting the 1s when ones are wild, both in your hand and in the count.
• Calling Liar on early bids that need only a die or two from the hidden dice.
• Jumping the bid far higher than needed and getting called.
• Bluffing every turn, which turns every bid you make into a guess even for you.
• Ignoring the shrinking dice count late in the game.

A practice plan

1. Play three games against Easy. Before every bid or call, say out loud: my matches, the hidden dice, a third of them.
2. Play against Medium. It plays the odds, so notice when it calls you, and check the reveal to see whether the call was right.
3. Try Hard. It treats your bids as clues and bluffs on purpose. Try a planned bluff on a face you don’t hold and see how it reacts.
4. Turn Wild ones off for a game and see how much lower the bids stay.
5. Set up a table of four or five with friends and computer players. Bigger tables mean more hidden dice and longer rounds.

When you are ready, play Liar’s Dice against the computer or with friends, and keep the rules guide handy. If you like dice games with a decision on every turn, Yacht Dice is another good one; for more bluffing at the table, try Imposter.

Written by the Pass and Play Games team.