Perudo Dice Game Rules

Perudo is the boxed version of Dudo, a bluffing game played in South America for centuries. It takes 2 to 6 players, and everyone needs five dice and something opaque to hide them under. The box holds 30 dice in six colours, six cups and a pouch, but ordinary dice and a mug each do the job.

The last player with dice left wins. Roll a single die each to settle who opens: highest roll makes the first bid, and play then moves clockwise. Dice knocked out along the way go into the pouch instead of a pile on the table, so everyone has to keep track of what is left in their head.

Everyone shakes their cup at the same time and slams it upside down on the table with the dice underneath. Lift the rim just enough to see your own five, and keep them to yourself.

The opening player bids on what the dice across the whole table add up to. A bid is a quantity and a value, say seven fours, and it claims that at least seven dice under the cups show a four, your own included.

Play then goes clockwise. On your turn you either bid higher or call dudo to say you do not believe the bid in front of you. The round ends the moment someone calls. A player loses a die, and then everyone gathers their dice and shakes again.

A bid can never lower the quantity. Raise the quantity and you may pick whatever value you like. Leave the quantity alone and the value has to go up.

Seven fours can therefore be followed by seven fives or by eight twos. It cannot be followed by six sixes, where the quantity drops, nor by seven twos, where the quantity stands still while the value falls.

Jumping is allowed. Nine threes is a legal answer to seven fours, and a big jump squeezes the next player whether or not your own dice back it up. Ones come with bidding rules of their own.

Every one on the table counts as the value being bid. With 5, 5, 1, 1 and 3 under your cup you hold four fives while the bidding is on fives, and three threes while it is on threes. The two ones change value as needed.

Two rules follow from that. To move the bidding onto ones, halve the quantity of the last bid and round up: eight sixes becomes four ones, and eleven threes needs at least six ones. To move back off ones to an ordinary value, double the quantity and add one, so four ones is followed by five ones or by nine of some other number.

The first bid of a round can never be on ones, and the same quantity of ones may only be bid once per round.

Call dudo, Spanish for I doubt it, when the bid in front of you has gone too far. The bidding stops and every cup comes up, the challenger first and the player who made the final bid last.

Count all the dice showing the bid value, then add every one on the table.

• If the total reaches the bid, the bid was good and the challenger loses a die.
• If it falls short, the bidder loses a die.

Suppose the bid was seven twos. The table shows five twos and three ones, which makes eight. The bid was safe, and the challenger pays for it.

Whoever lost the die opens the next round. If it was their last one they are out of the game, and the player on their left opens instead.

Calza claims that the last bid is exactly right, no more and no less. After a bid of thirteen fours, calza says there are precisely thirteen fours and ones on the table.

Anyone may call it except the player whose turn it is, who has to bid or call dudo. Calza can follow any bid, and it ends the bidding on the spot.

Get it right and you take back a die you lost earlier. Five is the ceiling, so calza with a full set of dice gains you nothing. Get it wrong and you lose one. The bidder is safe either way, and the player who called calza opens the next round.

The rulebook treats calza as an extra rule for experienced players. It is off during a palifico round, and off once the game is down to two players.

When a player loses their fourth die and sits with a single one left, the round that follows is a palifico round. That player opens the bidding, and three rules change:

• Ones are not wild. Only dice actually showing the bid value count.
• The value of the opening bid is locked, and everyone else may only raise the quantity. If the palifico player opens with two threes, the legal answers are three threes, four threes and upwards, or dudo.
• Only the palifico player may open on ones, since ones are an ordinary value this round.

Each player gets one palifico round per game, the one straight after their fourth die goes. Once you have had yours and still hold a single die, you are allowed to change the value during somebody else's palifico round, and the rest of the table then follows your new value.

Lose your last die and you leave the game. The player still holding dice at the end has won.

With two players left the special rules switch off. No palifico, no calza, and ones stay wild even when both of you are down to a single die. From there it is two cups on the table and every bid aimed straight at the other player.

These rules follow the rulebook for the boxed Perudo game: five dice each, wild ones, calza as an extra call, and one palifico round per player. Dudo is played in local variations all over South America, so the names and the fine detail may differ from the version you learned.