Cheat Card Game Rules

Cheat is a bluffing card game in which you play your cards face down and say what they are, and nobody has to tell the truth. Known as Cheat in Britain, Bullshit (or BS) in the United States and I Doubt It in older rule books, it is a shedding game: the first player to get rid of every card wins. Get caught lying and you pick up the whole pile; accuse someone who was telling the truth and the pile is yours instead. This guide covers the Cheat card game rules, the most common variations, and the odds that tell you when to call “Cheat!”.

Cheat Rules at a Glance

How to Play Cheat

1. Deal every card. Shuffle and deal the whole pack out, one card at a time. Look at your own hand.
2. Start with Aces. The player to the dealer’s left puts one or more cards face down in the middle and says how many, for example “two Aces”.
3. Go up one rank each turn. The next player must play Twos, the next Threes, and so on up to Kings, then back to Aces.
4. Tell the truth or bluff. You can play genuine cards of the rank, mix in others, or play none of the right rank at all. If you hold none, you have to bluff.
5. Call “Cheat!”. Any player who thinks the last play was a lie can call it, but only before the next player puts their cards down.
6. Turn the cards over. If any card is not the rank announced, the player who played them picks up the entire pile. If they were all genuine, the player who called picks up the pile.
7. Carry on. Play continues with the player to the left of the one who was challenged, calling the next rank in order.
8. Win. The first player to empty their hand wins – but if you are challenged on your last play and were lying, you pick up the pile and the game goes on.

Cheat Odds: When to Call

Every hand starts with real information: the cards you hold tell you a lot about what everyone else can have. With four players, each holding 13 cards, the numbers look like this.

• Bluffs are common. In a four-player game you hold a card of the rank you must call only 70% of the time at the start, so roughly one turn in three is a forced bluff. With six players it is close to half.
• Count your own cards. If you hold two Sevens, nobody else can honestly play three. A claim that needs more cards than are left is always a lie.
• Big claims are rarely true. Holding none of a rank yourself, the chance another player was dealt two of it is 41%, three only 10%. Holding one, a claim of two drops to 25%.
• Four of a kind is your ace in the hole. You are dealt all four of some rank 3.4% of the time; when you are, every claim of that rank by anyone else is a lie.

Tips for playing Cheat

• Plan your ranks ahead. The order is fixed, so you know what you will be asked for. In a four-player game the first player calls Aces, Fives, Nines, Kings, Fours and so on, meeting every rank once in 13 turns. Save cards for the ranks you will call later.
• Hide a lie inside the truth. Play one genuine card with an extra card or two; the pile only turns over if someone calls.
• Get rid of bluffs early. A big pile is a big punishment, so lie when the pile is small and tell the truth when it is large.
• Watch the pick-ups. A player who has just taken the pile may now hold the very cards they were caught without.
• Don’t call too often. A wrong call hands you the pile, so save your challenges for claims your own hand makes unlikely.

Cheat Variations

More Bluffing Games

If Cheat is your kind of game, try liar’s dice, where you bid on dice hidden under everyone’s cups, or the pub classic Three Card Brag. For the most famous bluffing game of all, start with our poker guide, and for another family card game see Switch.

Another party card game: President (also called Scum), where the order you go out decides who deals next time.

Another game about reading the table: in Go Fish, every ask tells you what a player holds.

Another party card game: Spoons, the fast passing game where the slowest grabber loses.

Another game about getting rid of your cards: Shithead (Palace), where you play higher or pick up the pile.

If you like bluffing: Kemps, the team game of secret signals and fake ones.

Cheat card game: frequently asked questions