How to play BS Poker
BS Poker — Bullshit Poker — is a bluffing game for 2 to 8 players. You will understand it in two minutes and spend years getting good at it.
The one idea
You are not claiming a hand you hold. You are claiming a hand exists somewhere across every player's cards put together. You can bid Quad Aces holding nothing but a Seven — if four Aces happen to be spread around the table, your bid was true and whoever called you pays for it.
That is the whole game. Everything else is bookkeeping.
A round, step by step
- 1
Deal one card to each player
Everyone starts with a single card that only they can see. The deck is reshuffled every round, so nothing carries over.
- 2
The opener names a hand
The first player must make a claim — any hand at any rank. They are claiming the hand exists somewhere across everyone's cards combined, not that they hold it themselves.
- 3
Everyone after either raises or calls BS
A raise must be strictly higher on the hand ladder. Calling BS ends the round immediately and forces a showdown.
- 4
Reveal and settle
All hands go face up. If the called hand exists in the combined cards, the caller was wrong and takes an extra card. If it does not exist, the bluffer is caught and takes the extra card.
- 5
Whoever won the round opens the next one
The winner is whoever did not take the card. Catch a bluff and you open; have your bid stand up and you open. Cards are reshuffled and redealt, with every player receiving as many cards as they have accumulated.
- 6
Last player standing wins
Reaching six cards is your last life. Lose a round while holding six and you are out. Play continues until one player remains.
Twos are wild
Every 2 counts as any rank its holder needs. A 2 in your hand is an Ace, a King, whatever makes your claim true.
Two consequences follow. First, a rank can reach eight of a kind — four natural cards plus all four wilds — which is why the ladder climbs so much higher than in standard poker. Second, there are no straights and no flushes: suits and sequences stop meaning anything once a blank card can be any rank. Only matching ranks count.
The hand ladder
17 hands, lowest to highest. Two-group hands only ever name the bigger group's rank — the second group can be any other rank.
| # | Hand | Cards | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | High | 1 | A single card of the named rank. |
| 2 | Pair | 2 | Two cards of the named rank. |
| 3 | Triple | 3 | Three cards of the named rank. |
| 4 | Full House | 3 + 2 | Three of the named rank, plus a pair of any other rank. |
| 5 | Quad | 4 | Four cards of the named rank. |
| 6 | Evens | 4 + 2 | Four of the named rank, plus a pair of any other rank. |
| 7 | Fuller House | 4 + 3 | Four of the named rank, plus three of any other rank. |
| 8 | Five of a Kind | 5 | Five cards of the named rank — needs at least one wild. |
| 9 | Odds | 5 + 3 | Five of the named rank, plus three of any other rank. |
| 10 | Fullest House | 5 + 4 | Five of the named rank, plus four of any other rank. |
| 11 | Six of a Kind | 6 | Six cards of the named rank — needs at least two wilds. |
| 12 | Higher Evens | 6 + 4 | Six of the named rank, plus four of any other — the Evens family, one rung up. |
| 13 | Seven of a Kind | 7 | Seven cards of the named rank — needs at least three wilds. |
| 14 | Manor | 7 + 4 | Seven of the named rank, plus four of any other. The house outgrows itself. |
| 15 | Higher Odds | 7 + 5 | Seven of the named rank, plus five of any other — spends all four wilds. |
| 16 | Eight of a Kind | 8 | All four natural cards of the named rank, plus all four wilds. |
| 17 | Mansion | 8 + 4 | Eight of the named rank plus four of any other — twelve cards, every wild spent. Nothing beats a Mansion except a higher Mansion, if you are crazy enough. |
A worked example
She is holding the Seven of clubs. Safe, and tells the table nothing.
Bo holds one Nine. He needs exactly one more Nine — or one wild — to exist anywhere at the table. With five other cards out there, that is a fair gamble.
Cy holds a wild 2 and nothing else useful. This is a pure bluff: three Kings across five unknown cards is a stretch.
Cards go face up. The table holds one King and two wilds — so with the wilds standing in, three Kings does exist. Cy's bluff was accidentally true, and Dee takes the extra card.
Notice what happened: Cy had no business making that bid and still won the round. Wilds mean the table is almost always richer than it looks, which is exactly why calling BS is harder than it feels.
Cards are lives
Lose a round and you are dealt one extra card every round from then on. More cards is worse: you are closer to elimination, and you hand the table more information when hands go face up.
Reaching 6 cards is your last life. Lose again at that point and you are out — there is no seventh card.
Calling BS out of turn
By default, anyone except the bidder can call BS the instant a bid lands — you do not have to wait for your turn. The first call to reach the server is the one that counts, and everyone else is too late.
It changes how you bluff. A wild overbid is no longer safe just because the next player seems timid; any of five other people might pounce. Hosts can switch it off in the room settings if they prefer a stricter turn order.
Why calling BS is worth the risk
Here is the rule that makes the whole game tick: whoever won the round opens the next one — that is, whoever did not take the card.
That is not a consolation prize, it is the real prize. Opening the round means you set the floor, and you can set it brutally high. Open on Fullest House Aces and the players after you have only a handful of rungs left before someone is forced to call. Done well, the turn never comes back around to you at all — you spend the round watching other people sweat.
The actual trade
- Call and you are right: the bluffer takes a card and you take the opening bid. Pure profit.
- Call and you are wrong: you take the card and they open instead. You paid a life for nothing — which is exactly why calling has to be a real decision.
So calling BS out of turn is not just a way to punish a liar — it is a way to steal the opening bid from a turn order that was never going to reach you. A player who never calls is a player who never controls a round.
Four things that make you better
Count the cards in play, not the players
Six players holding eleven cards between them is a very different table from six players holding six. The more cards are out, the more likely any given hand genuinely exists — and the more dangerous calling BS becomes.
Remember that wilds inflate everything
There are four wilds in a 52-card deck, so roughly one in thirteen cards on the table is a blank that can be anything. Hands look impossible more often than they are.
Watch who takes the cards
A player on five cards is desperate and will call BS early to avoid being forced into a big bid. A player on one card can afford to bluff enormously. Bid into the desperate ones.
Call BS to buy the opening bid, not just to punish a lie
Because the caller opens the next round, a call you are only half-confident in can still be correct. If taking one card buys you the chance to open on a hand nobody can climb past, you came out ahead even when the bid turns out to be true.