OBJECTIVE OF FARO: Place winning bets on cards to receive a payout each turn.
For instance, a Cheat game for more than three players requires the use of two or more decks of 52 playing cards. In some game variations, the rank sequences go downward rather than the traditional upward, and much more. In a nutshell, here below are some of the most popular Bullshit card game variations: Canadian and Spanish Bullshit; British. Try to remember all the cards that you held at the start of play and recall the salient details of the cards played by the other players. Listen to your partner's bids and watch his plays. He wants to help you, so don't ignore him. Play each card in the same tempo.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2-10 players
MATERIALS: 52-card deck, betting chips, coppers (pennies), case-keeper, dealer box (optional)
RANK OF CARDS: A,K,Q,J,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2
TYPE OF GAME: Gambling
AUDIENCE: Adult
INTRODUCTION TO FARO
This gambling game was extremely popular in the American Wild West and the gold rush, today Faro is a lesser known and enjoyed game, having gone out of style in the 1950s. It's believed to have originated in France sometime in the late 17th century and was called 'Pharaon.' As it passed through western Europe its name changed to Pharo in England, once it arrived in the United States its name was converted to Faro.
Faro is a derivative of the game Bassetta, which was brought to Paris from Italy in the early 17th century. Its origins can be traced back to as early as the 15th century.
HOW TO PLAY
Setting Up
The dealer also acts as a banker.
Players buy chips from the banker in order to place bets during the game.
The banker uses a table, typically covered in green cloth. It's 3 x 1.5 feet with thirteen cards of one suit (usually spades) printed on it. Below is a photo of the table layout.
In saloons, an employee of the banker or anyone not playing the game would manage the casekeeper. It is an abacus-like board with four beads on a wire opposite of a card. Once a card has been shown, the casekeeper would push a bead over to indicate so. Before a fresh deal, all the beads are pushed over to the other side of the wire to indicate they have not been shown. In the absence of a casekeeper a cue sheet may be used. Simply grab a fresh piece of paper, to the far left, from top to bottom, mark A-K-Q-J-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2. If a card is shown, and it is a winner, indicate so by placing a straight line beside the corresponding rank. If the card is a loser, indicate that with a 0 next to the card show. A soda is marked with a dot. in the event of a split, mark an x. Reminder, there will only be three notations beside the card's rank on the cue card if there is a split.
Betting units should be decided prior to starting the game.
Betting
- Size: There are two limits on size: plain limit or running limit. The plain limit is the highest amount staked on a card for the initial bet. The running limit is 4 x the plain limit. So, if the plain limit is 5 the running limit is 20. For example, a player bets 5 and wins. They may leave their original stake and winnings, which totals 10, in the same spot or move it to another card where they also can win 10. This means the player's total stake is 20, the running limit imposed by the banker. If the player wins that last bet, they may only stake 20 on the next. This is called parleeing a bet. If the player wins, their maximum stake doubles. So, if the first bet is 5 the second is 10, the third is 20, the fourth is 40, and so on. Bankers generally allow parleeing bets because they have the statistical advantage.
- Placing Bets: Players must decide what cards on the Faro board they wish to bet on. Placing a betting chip in the center of a card is placing a bet on that card alone. However, they are several possible ways to bet on cards in Faro. If a player places a betting chip equidistant from four cards in the center of the table, they are placing a bet on all four of those cards. Bets may also be placed in the corner of a card, this places a bet on that card and the card directly diagonal (drawing a line through the chip to the next card) of the card with the chip. Players may also place a betting chip toward the end of the table, equidistant from three cards, one of those being one of the cards farthest out in the layout. This places a bet on all three of those cards. The last simple way to bet is high card. On the Faro table will be a rectangle marked 'high card,' placing a bet here means you think the winning card will be higher than the losing card.
- Coppered Bets: Placing a copper (simply a penny) on top of your bet reverses the bet. You are then betting that a card (or cards) will be a losing card rather than be a winning card.
- Players may avoid risking their stake on a turn by declaring, 'I bar this bet for a turn.'
- Players can reduce their stake by half by declaring, 'one-half of this bet goes.'
Playing Faro
After bets all placed, the dealer shuffles and cuts the deck and places it face-up beside themselves. Ideally, the dealer will use a dealing box. It is a spring loaded box the dealer puts the deck in so that cards come out one at a time and players can't see cards below the one on top. This reduces cheating.
The first card on top is called the soda, it is not used and immediately discarded to the left of the board. Following the soda, the next card is the loser card. It is placed between the soda and the pack, on the left side of the board. The next card face-up on the deck is the winning card for that turn. Each turn has two cards, a winner and a loser. Before the next turn, the winning card is discarded to the same pile as the soda.
The game has 25 turns with betting rounds in between, starting with the soda and ending with the hock (the last card turned). All bets are settled at the end of a turn and new bets are placed.
Loser cards only win for the banker, who collects the chips placed on the losing card on the table, unless the bet was coppered. If the bet was coppered the player wins, their winnings is equal to the amount of the bet placed.
Winning cards win for the player who bet on them. Their winnings is equal to the bet amount placed on the winning card and paid out by the banker.
If the winning and losing card are the same in a turn this is called a split. The dealer collects half the chips placed on that card.
When the deck runs dry, and the hock is disposed of, cards a collected and reshuffled. This is a fresh deal. Playing resumes as normal.
REFERENCES:
http://web.archive.org/web/20160507070137/http://www.thegamesforum.com:80/Faro.htm
http://www.pophaydn.com/uploads/7/7/6/6/7766194/faro_booklet.pdf
Card Games To Play With Friends
https://www.pagat.com/banking/faro.html
This page is partly based on a contribution from Mike Stabosz
Introduction
This game is generally called Cheat in Britain and Bullshit in the USA. In many books it appears as I Doubt It. The aim is to get rid of all your cards by playing them to a discard pile. Since cards are played face down, giving players the option to lie about the cards they are playing, but if the lie is exposed they must pick up the pile.
Cheat The Game
In this game each player plays the next rank above the previous player. Please note that there is another game, also known as I Doubt It or Bluff, in which all players are required to play the same rank until there is a challenge. That version of I Doubt It is described on a separate page.
Players and Cards
The game can be played by from 2 to 10 players. One standard pack of 52 cards is used.
Play
All the cards are dealt out to the players; some may have more than others, but not by much. The object is to get rid of all your cards. Select at random who should go first and continue clockwise.
Cheat Card Game Online
On the table is a discard pile, which starts empty. A turn consists of discarding one or more cards face down on the pile, and calling out their rank. The first player must discard Aces, the second player discards Twos, the next player Threes, and so on. After Tens come Jacks, then Queens, then Kings, then back to Aces, etc.
Since the cards are discarded face down, you do not in fact have to play the rank you are calling. For example if it is your turn to discard Sevens, you may actually discard any card or mixture of cards; in particular, if you don't have any Sevens you will be forced to play some other card or cards.
Any player who suspects that the card(s) discarded by a player do not match the rank called can challenge the play by calling 'Cheat!', 'Bullshit!' or 'I doubt it!' (depending on what you call the game). Then the cards played by the challenged player are exposed and one of two things happens:
- if they are all of the rank that was called, the challenge is false, and the challenger must pick up the whole discard pile;
- if any of the played cards is different from the called rank, the challenge is correct, and the person who played the cards must pick up the whole discard pile.
After the challenge is resolved, play continues in normal rotation: the player to the left of the one who was challenged plays and calls the next rank in sequence.
The first player to get rid of all their cards and survive any challenge resulting from their final play wins the game. If you play your last remaining card(s), but someone challenges you and the cards you played are not what you called, you pick up the pile and play continues.
Variations
If there are a lot of players, you may use two or more packs shuffled together.
For some people the sequence of ranks which have to be played goes downward rather than upward, beginning A, K, Q, J, 10, ...
Some people play that you can (claim to) play either the next rank above or the next rank below the rank announced by the previous player. For instance if the player before you played some cards an said 'two tens', and you do not wish to challenge, you have a choice of playing jacks or nines.
Some allow cards of the same rank as the last card to be played, as well as the next higher or lower rank.
In the Chinese game known as 吹牛 (chuī niú = bragging) or 说谎 (shuō huăng = lying) played in Fujian province, there is no restriction on the rank of cards to be played except that the cards in each set played must all be (claimed to be) equal. It would therefore be possible to play the whole game without lying, but then it would take you more turns to get rid of your cards than a player who was able to lie successfully. This version is normally played with several decks shuffled together, so that a player can claim to play a large number of cards of the same rank without it being an obvious lie. This game is described in Mae Channing's blog.
Some play that you can try cheat by playing more cards than you claim to have played - for example say three eights while playing three eights and a jack. This can be challenged in the usual way and you pick up the discard pile if your play did not match your call.
Description another version of this game can be found on Khopesh's Bullshit page.
Two closely related games are described on other pages:
- Another version of I Doubt It!, in which players must all play (or claim to play) the same rank.
- The Russian game Verish' ne Verish' ('trust - don't trust'), which is similar to the above.
Proprietary Versions
DollTV has published BS Button Game, a package containing a deck of cards and a red button. Players challenge by pressing the button which speaks the word 'bullshit' in a variety of celebrity impression voices. The deck contains the standard 52 cards plus two wild jokers and two 'bureaucrat' cards. Plays are limited to not more than four cards at a time, and the holder of a bureaucrat may play it immediately after a challenge to cancel the challenge and specify the rank of cards to be played next. The BS Button Game can be ordered from amazon.com.
Online Games
Gameslush.com offers an online Cheat game against live opponents or computer players.
Cheat can be played online at TrapApps.
