Cheat
Also called I Doubt It or Bullshit — a pure bluffing game where players discard face-down while lying about what they played, and others may call the bluff.
Coming soon — not yet playable
Rules
Cheat is played with a standard deck dealt out entirely among all players. On their turn, a player must place one or more cards face down onto a central discard pile, announcing (out loud) what rank those cards supposedly are — following a fixed ascending or descending rank order around the table (e.g., each player in turn must claim to play the next rank up from the last).
The catch: a player doesn't have to actually play the rank they announce — they may lie, discarding any card(s) face down while claiming a different rank. Any other player may challenge by calling "Cheat!" at any point; the most recently played cards are then revealed. If the claim was a lie, the liar takes the entire discard pile into their hand; if the claim was true, the challenger takes the pile instead.
Historical note: the earliest printed reference to this game (under the name "I Doubt It") appears in a 1914 edition of Hoyle's Rules of Games, though it's widely believed to be an older oral tradition passed down informally before that. The first player to empty their hand wins.
Strategy notes: Because success depends entirely on convincingly lying about your discards (and correctly reading when others are lying), Cheat isolates poker's bluffing skill in its purest form, stripped of any hand-ranking or betting mechanics.
Common house rules
Penalty for a wrongly-called bluff
Some tables add a rule where a challenger who incorrectly calls 'Cheat!' (i.e., the claim was actually true) must take the pile themselves instead of the original player, raising the stakes of challenging.
Multiple cards per turn
Standard rule allows playing more than one card per turn (e.g., 'two 7s') as long as all cards played that turn are claimed to be the same rank — a player may play zero cards only if genuinely out of that rank, which itself risks suspicion.
No hand ranking, pure bluffing
Worth stating clearly at a mixed dealer's-choice table: Cheat has no poker hand rankings or betting at all — it's included here purely for its historical and mechanical connection to poker's bluffing DNA.
Related games
Based on shared category, origin, and rules that reference each other.
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