BS — also called Bullshit or, in Britain, Cheat — is a bluffing card game for 2 to 10 players played with one standard 52-card deck. Deal out the whole deck (some players get more cards than others if it doesn't divide evenly). Going in turn order, each player discards cards face-down onto a shared pile while announcing a rank, starting at Aces and moving up — Aces, then Twos, then Threes, and so on. You don't need the cards you claim; lying is the entire mechanic. Any other player can call your bluff: if the discard doesn't match what you announced, you pick up the whole pile; if it does match, the challenger picks it up instead. First player to legally empty their hand is trying to win — though as you'll see below, two major rules sources don't even agree on when "winning" actually happens.
That last point is worth sitting with before you deal a hand: this isn't a game with one universally agreed rulebook. It's an old, orally-transmitted card game, and the two most-cited independent references for it — Pagat.com and Wikipedia — disagree on real, game-deciding points. This guide teaches the base game first, then walks through exactly where the authorities split, so you can pick a version and tell your table which one you're using before the argument happens mid-game instead of after.
If you want to see the mechanic in action before gathering three other people, start a table in Gotcha Liar to try this bluffing loop — play a card face-down, claim a rank, call LIAR on a challenge — solo against three AI opponents. More on how it differs from tabletop BS toward the end of this guide.
What you need to play
- One standard 52-card deck. Wikipedia's setup recommends a second deck once you're at 5 or more players.
- 2 to 10 players, per Pagat.com. Wikipedia's own stated range is narrower — 3 to 10 — and the two sources genuinely disagree on whether 2 players works; see the disagreements section below.
- A flat playing surface for the shared discard pile everyone can reach.
How to play BS, step by step
- Deal the entire deck. Every card goes out, one at a time, to every player. With a group that doesn't divide evenly into 52, some players will simply hold more cards than others — that's expected, not an error.
- Set turn order and the starting rank. The first player discards one or more cards face-down onto a central pile while announcing a rank of Ace. Play then moves to the next player, who must announce the next rank up — Twos — regardless of what they're actually discarding. The sequence keeps climbing: after Tens comes Jacks, then Queens, then Kings, then wraps back around to Aces.
- Discard while claiming, truthfully or not. On your turn, you play any number of cards face-down onto the pile and state a quantity and rank ("two Sevens"). The cards you actually play do not have to match your claim — bluffing is the point of the game, not a violation of it.
- Anyone can challenge. After a play, any other player may call out the discard (commonly "Cheat!," "Bullshit!," or "I doubt it!," depending on which regional name your table uses). The played cards are then revealed.
- Resolve the challenge. If the revealed cards do not match the claimed rank, the player who discarded them must pick up the entire discard pile and add it to their hand. If the cards do match, the challenger was wrong, and the challenger picks up the whole pile instead.
- Continue in sequence. After a challenge resolves (pile picked up either way) or after a play goes unchallenged, the discard pile is cleared and play continues to the next player and the next rank in sequence.
- Reach for empty-handed. Keep going around the table. Getting rid of every card in your hand is the objective — but exactly when that counts as a win is one of the two points where the rules authorities disagree, covered below.
Setup by player count
The keyword data behind this guide shows player count is a real, recurring question — people specifically search "how to play BS with 2 players," "with 3 players," and "with 4 players" rather than just the generic rules. The base rules above don't change by headcount, but here's what's confirmed for each range:
| Players | What's confirmed | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Pagat.com's stated range starts at 2 | Pagat.com |
| 3–10 | Both Pagat.com and Wikipedia agree this range works | Pagat.com, Wikipedia |
| 5+ | Wikipedia recommends adding a second 52-card deck | Wikipedia |
Names: BS, Bullshit, Cheat, and I Doubt It are the same game
If you've seen this game called something else, you're not wrong — it genuinely goes by different names in different places, and which name your group uses is mostly a matter of where you learned it.
| Name | Where it's used | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Cheat | Britain | Pagat.com, Wikipedia (article titled "Cheat (game)") |
| Bullshit | USA | Pagat.com, Wikipedia |
| I Doubt It | Documented in books; other English-speaking regions | Pagat.com, Wikipedia |
| 吹牛 (chuī niú) / 说谎 (shuō huǎng) | China | Pagat.com |
| Verish' ne Verish' | Russia | Pagat.com |
| Bluff | Minor alternate name confirmed by primary sources | Pagat.com, Wikipedia |
"Bluff" deserves one caveat: it's a real, primary-source-confirmed alternate name, but it's also just the ordinary English word for deception, so don't expect a web search for "bluff card game" to reliably surface this specific game — it mostly surfaces dictionary results instead.
The regional split is more than a naming footnote — it shows up in search behavior too. In the UK, "Cheat" is searched substantially more than "BS" or "Bullshit" for this game; in the US, it's reversed and BS/Bullshit dominate. If you're teaching someone from Britain, lead with "Cheat" — it'll land faster than "BS" will.
Where the rules authorities disagree
This section exists because pretending every rules source agrees would be dishonest, and because the disagreements are genuinely useful to know before they cause a table argument.
Disagreement 1 — do you have to survive your last play to win? Pagat.com states the win condition as: the first player to get rid of all their cards and survive any challenge resulting from their final play wins. Wikipedia's summary is looser: "the game ends when one player runs out of cards, at which point that player wins," with no mention of surviving a final challenge. In practice, this is a real, game-changing difference — under Pagat's version, a player can discard their last cards, get challenged, get caught bluffing, and be forced to pick the entire pile back up, unwon and back in the game. Under Wikipedia's version, the moment your hand is empty, you've won outright, full stop. Agree on which version you're using before the game gets tight enough for it to matter.
Disagreement 2 — does the game work with only 2 players? Pagat.com's stated range is 2 to 10 players. Wikipedia's stated range is 3 to 10. Neither source explains the gap, but if you're specifically trying to play with just one other person, Pagat's version is the one that says it works.
Both sources agree on the core mechanics — turn order, the ascending rank sequence, and how a challenge resolves (loser picks up the pile) — so the disagreements are narrow but real, not a sign that one source is simply wrong.
Documented variants
Two rules-and-variants pages and Pagat.com's own reference between them document a real set of named variants. None of these are guesses — each is attributed to the page that lists it.
| Variant | What changes | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Descending | Play Kings down to Aces instead of ascending from Aces | gamerules.com; Pagat.com documents the same descending-sequence option independently |
| Same Card | Everyone discards the same claimed rank instead of moving up in sequence | gamerules.com |
| High or Low | A player may claim either the rank above or below the previous play | gamerules.com; Pagat.com documents an equivalent flexible-rank-choice option |
| No Turns | Any player can discard at any time, out of strict turn order | gamerules.com |
| Two Decks | Play with two 52-card decks shuffled together | gamerules.com |
| Drinking Bullshit | A party/drinking-game ruleset layered on the base game | gamerules.com |
| Reverse the Order | Turn direction reverses partway through | collegewares.com |
| Joker Power | Jokers are added to the deck with a special effect | collegewares.com |
| Special Cards | Jacks, Kings, Aces, and Jokers each carry a distinct power | collegewares.com |
| Double Trouble | A named twist on the base discard rules | collegewares.com |
| Group Call | A named twist on how challenges are made | collegewares.com |
| Same-rank-plus-adjacent | You may claim the last-played rank or a rank adjacent to it | Pagat.com |
| No rank restriction (Chinese variant) | Players must simply claim that all played cards are the same rank as each other, with no ascending sequence required | Pagat.com |
| Quantity bluffing | Lying about how many cards you're playing, not just their rank — e.g. claiming "three eights" while actually playing four cards | Pagat.com |
If you're teaching new players, start with the base game above and add exactly one variant at a time — stacking several of these at once (say, Two Decks plus No Turns plus Joker Power) changes the game enough that it stops being a good first experience.
Practising the bluff without a table of four
Everything above assumes you've got at least a couple of other people free, which is the actual bottleneck for most card games in this family — you can know the rules perfectly and still not have anyone to play against on a random weeknight. Start playing Gotcha Liar to use this same bluffing loop immediately: you play a card face-down, claim a rank, and either let a challenge stand or call LIAR, against three AI opponents who bluff on their own initiative rather than following a script. It's not a hidden-role or social-deduction game — there's no secret identity to guess, just the same play-claim-challenge tension as tabletop BS. Two structural differences from the tabletop version worth knowing before you sit down: Gotcha Liar runs on an elimination structure where finishing in 4th place means you lose the round, and it uses one final challenge window after any player empties their hand, rather than open-ended challenges throughout. If you already like how bluff-calling feels in BS, it's a way to get more reps in between real-life games — and if you're building toward hosting a full table, our best social deduction games for solo play and best AI games guides cover adjacent ground for finding more to play in the meantime.
Quick reference
- Deck: one standard 52-card deck (add a second at 5+ players, per Wikipedia)
- Players: 2–10 (Pagat.com) or 3–10 (Wikipedia) — sources disagree on the 2-player floor
- Rank sequence: Aces, Twos, Threes... through Kings, then back to Aces
- Challenge call: "Cheat!," "Bullshit!," or "I doubt it!," depending on regional name
- Loses the pile: the discarder if caught lying; the challenger if wrong
- Win condition: empties their hand (Wikipedia) — or empties their hand and survives any challenge on that final play (Pagat.com)
- Other names: Bullshit (US), Cheat (Britain), I Doubt It, 吹牛/说谎 (China), Verish' ne Verish' (Russia), Bluff (minor)