Game Dudo, the Dice Game for Poker Aces - Lie, Bluff, Expose | Game Rules

Play the dice game from Pirates of the Caribbean! It’s the most popular dice game in South America, but nobody knows it in Germany! Gamble like Captain Jack Sparrowthe game  dudo at your next game night with friends. Who has the best poker face?

Game Dudo – The Most Popular Dice Game of a Whole Continent

Dudo (in Spanish: ”I doubt”) is the dice game par excellence in South America. It is also known as Cacho, Pico, Perudo, Cachito or Dadinho and is one of the most popular pastimes in Peru, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil and other Latin American countries.

By the way, Dudo also appears in the 2nd part of the successful Pirates of the Caribbean film series! Dudo is a dice game that involves bluffing, lying and seeing through others, a bit like poker with dice in other words. In this respect, the game Dudo is also similar to the Mexican Dice game, which is popular in this country.

The basic principle inthe game  Dudo is the same as in the Mexican Dice Game: you roll the dice with a dice cup but do not show the other players the result. Then the player whose turn it is makes a statement about the number rolled and another player has to decide whether to believe him or to doubt the statement..

• Players: 2 – infinite.
• Accessories: Per player at least 5 dice & 1 dice cup.
• Skills required: Luck, people skills, poker face.
• Goal of the game: At the beginning, each player has a dice cup with 5 dice. If a player loses a round in Dudo, he also loses one of his dice.The winner is the player who is the last to have one or more dice left.

This Is How You Prepare the Dice Game Dudo

First, determine the seating order and thus the order of play. To do this, each player rolls one die. The player with the highest number of dice starts, followed by the player with the second highest number of dice, and so on. Players with the same number of points roll the dice again among themselves to determine the order of play.

Example: There are 6 players: A, B, C, D, E and F. They roll the dice in this order: 5, 6, 5, 4, 4, 1. For players B and F the situation is quite clear: B is first, F last. Now A and C roll the dice again, their results: 3 and 6. That means player C sits in second place, to the left of player B (it is played clockwise). Player A sits in ”3rd place”. Then D and E roll the dice again with the results 2 and 5.
Accordingly, the final seating order is now: B – C – A – E – D – F.

Pokerface On, the Dice Game Dudo Is On!

Now the actual game begins: all players roll the dice with their dice cups, but face down. Only they look under the cup and memorise the result. The first player, in our example B, now announces how many of his dice show the same number of points and which number of points that is, for example ”3 deuces” or ”5 sixes” – but he may also lie without restraint, that is entirely up to him! The next player, in this case C, now has 3 options: he can raise, disbelieve or parry.

Increase

Let’s say player B has announced ”3 deuces” and player C decides to raise. He can now either increase the number of deuces, e.g. say ”4 deuces”, or increase the number of dice, e.g. ”3 threes”, or both, e.g. ”5 fours” to be above. What he cannot do is to increase the number or the number of points and at the same time decrease the other. ”5 ones” are therefore not higher than ”3 twos”, nor are ”2 sixes”.

Doubt

Once a player has raised, it is the next player’s turn. Let’s say player C raised with the announcement ”4 threes” (i.e. both number and number of dice). Next it is player A’s turn. She doubts C’s statement, so C must now turn over his dice cup and show everyone his actual dice result. If he has told the truth, doubter A loses one die, but if she has convicted C of bluffing, he loses one. After each doubting round, all players roll the dice again and look at their result. The new round starts with the player who has lost a die. Whoever has lost all his dice is eliminated.

Parrying

However, there is also a way to win back or gain dice in this dice game! This consists of parrying an announcement. If you say: “”I parry”, this means that you have exactly the same number of dice as the previous player. Or at least pretends to.

Let’s assume it was player D’s turn and he said ”3 fives”. Now it is player F’s turn and he says: ”I parry that”. This means: ”I also have 3 fives and exactly 3 fives.” 4 fives would actually be more, but in this case they do not count as parried, nor do 3, 4 or even 5 sixes. With these results, F can raise, but just not parry.

Since it is much less likely to be able to parry than to raise, the reward is also greater: there is a cube in addition! Provided the next player, i.e. B in the example, either does not doubt F’s statement, or if he does doubt it, it turns out to be correct.

Rule Variations When Parrying

Based on this rule, 3 game Dudo variants are possible in this creative dice game and you should determine which rule applies beforehand:

1. There are more dice than 5 per player. All the dice that are not in play are in a box and each player can gain as many dice as they want..
2. There are exactly 5 dice per player. So dice can only be gained from the moment one or more of the players have lost dice. You collect these lost dice in a box or bowl in the middle of the table. Theoretically, a player can win all the dice that other players have lost.
3. There are exactly 5 dice per player and each player may also only have a maximum of 5 dice. This means that parrying only makes sense for players who have already lost one or more dice and want to win them back.

Ace Wins – The Jokers in the Dice Game Dudo

Now another simple rule, but one that has huge implications: If a die shows a one, it counts as a ”As” or wild card in the game Dudo! This means that the number one can stand for any other number!

Example: A has rolled 1,1,3,4,4. The previous player announces 3 threes. A can now – without lying – both parry and raise! If she parries, the two ones or aces count as 3s. But she can also raise with the statements ”3 fours” or ”4 fours” without having to fear if the next player questions them, because the 1s or Aces can just count as fours!

“Polite” Rounds

A so-called ”polite” round, called Palifico in Spanish, always occurs when a player has only one die left, or has just lost his penultimate die in the last round. Since this player is thus only one die away from elimination, the ”polite rules” come into force for all players in this round..

This means:

a) The aces do not count as wild cards.

b) When raising, only the number may be raised, but not the number of points. So the bid ”2 threes” cannot be outbid by ”2 fours” or ”3 fives” in this round, but only by ”3 threes”, ”4 threes” or ”5 threes”.

There are as many ”Polite Rounds” played until all players with only one die are either eliminated or have gained dice again.

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Get your dice cups ready and start a fiery board game night with Latin America’s favourite dice game Dudo! Add a (non-alcoholic) caipirinha and the right music and you’ll feel like you’re on holiday. 🙂

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Image source Cover image: 6 colour by Dicemanic at CC BY 2.0.

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