How to Play B.S.

Setup

Objective

The objective of B.S. is to run out of cards before your opponents and to avoid being caught lying.

Gameplay

First, deal out the entire deck to the players.

Play begins with whoever is holding the ace of spades in their hand. That player places it face down in the center of the table to take the first turn and says “one ace.”

It’s now the next players turn. The player to the left then places a number of cards down on their turn. Each player must place cards down in ascending order whether or not they hold the value they need on their turn. For example, this player does not have any 2s, but they still play “three 2s” in an effort to play the required value, dispose of cards quickly and fib the table. In this case, the table buys the fib and it’s now the next players turn. Each player continues with their turn in ascending order around the table, announcing that they have played x number of cards of the next value in the sequence.

Let’s use another example. It’s the third players turn and they play two kings, but  declare “two 8’s”. A player calls “B.S.” to show they think that player is lying about what they played (in this case the player that called B.S. is correct). Note: You can only call “B.S.” before the next person plays, so think quick!

The most recently played cards are turned over to reveal if the last play was BS or an honest turn. If the player fibbed, they pick up the cards they played on their turn as well as all cards remaining in the middle of the table from previous turns. If they were telling the truth, the person who called “B.S.” picks up the played cards plus the cards from previous plays in the middle of the table. To win the game, you must run out of cards in your hand. As you can imagine, you only want to call BS when you are more confident than not that the player is fibbing, otherwise you will collect more cards and hurt your chances of winning.

Note: Calling “B.S.” does not restart the sequence, so if someone lies about playing 8’s and gets caught, the player to their left will restart the game by playing 9’s. Once you reach kings, the sequence starts over with the next player playing aces.

Endgame

The game continues until someone runs out of cards in their hand.

B.S. Variations and Alternate Rules

• Peanut Butter: In one variation, if someone gets away with lying, they say “peanut butter” to let everyone know. This is a fun variation if you want to keep track of who is playing which cards and who is bluffing.
• Multiple Decks: To make the game more challenging or to play with 5 or more players, combine multiple decks of playing cards.
• Reverse: Instead of playing in typical order Ace, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, and so on – reverse the order where players must play cards (or lies) in descending order (ie. Ace, Kings, Queens, Jacks, etc.)

FAQs

How many cards do you start with in BS?

Each player is dealt 13 cards to start the game in a standard four person gameplay. If playing with more players, distribute a standard 52 card deck or combine multiple card decks, and distribute cards evenly amonst players. 

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