Basic Rules
Each player holds a bill in their hand, concealing the serial number from the other players. Knowing only the 8 numbers in their own hand the first player makes a bid as to how many of a specific digit (1 thru 9 and 0 for 10) are present across all the bills. The next player in turn either makes a higher bid or challenges, meaning no, there aren’t that many out there. Once all the other players challenge a bid a count is taken to see who was right. If there are that many or more of the final digit that was bid across all the bills the bidder wins and if there are less the challenger(s) win. It is a zero-sum game, with a winning bidder collecting from the challengers or paying out to them in a losing effort.
Key Things to Know:
Digit rank – 1 is lowest and 0 (representing 10) is the highest the order is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0
Once a bid reaches 0 e.g. 3 0s, the level must increase, say to 4 1s, 4 0s, 5 2s, basically anything higher than 3 0s.
When you’re the 1st player to go you must make a bid e.g. 3 1s, meaning there are 3 or more 1s across all the hands. After that it’s either make a higher bid, say 3 2s or challenge, meaning no, I don’t think there are 3 1s across all the hands.
When there are more than 2 players bidding proceeds in clockwise fashion.
Once everyone challenges a bid, it forces a Count. If the bid is made the bidder wins and collects a unit from each challenger. Conversely if it falls short the bidder pays out a unit to each challenger. So in say a 4-player game a winning bidder would collect 3 units, one from each of the other players, while a losing bidder would pay out 3 units, one to each of the others.
The last bidder in the previous game opens the bidding in the next game.
In card poker terms Bid equates to Raise and Challenge equates to Call.