The rules, briefly
How a heist goes
You are all one crew. Each heist is a hand of Texas hold’em: two cards each that only you see, then five on the table for everyone. There is no betting and nobody folds. Nobody may say or hint what they hold.
- Four rounds of chips. After the pocket cards, after the flop (three cards), after the turn (a fourth) and after the river (the fifth), everyone takes one chip of that round’s colour: white, yellow, orange, then red.
- What a chip says. Chips are numbered 1 to the size of the crew. Take 1 if you think your hand is the weakest at the table, the top number if you think it is the strongest.
- Talking with chips. You may take a chip from the middle or straight out of someone’s hands; they then take another. Put yours back to think again. That is the only conversation allowed.
- Moving on. When everyone holds a chip, say you are happy. When everyone is, the next cards come out. Old chips stay in front of you so the crew can see how your hand has grown or shrunk.
- The showdown. Only the red chips count. Hands are turned over from red 1 upward; each must be at least as strong as the one before. All in order: a vault opens. One out of place: the alarm.
Open three vaults before three alarms.
Poker hands, weakest to strongest
High card · pair · two pair · three of a kind · straight · flush · full house · four of a kind · straight flush. You use the best five of your two cards and the five on the table. The table tells you what you hold right now.
The court
This edition
- This is the heart of the game only: the four rounds of chips and the showdown. The specialist and challenge cards of the boxed game are not here.
- Nobody may say or hint what they hold. The room chat is open, so this is on your honour, as it is at a real table.
- Made for a crew that is not in one room: the table tells you when a chip is taken out of your hands, shows who is happy and who is still thinking, and gives everyone five set lines of table talk in place of a raised eyebrow.
- A round of chips ends when everyone holds a chip and has said they are happy. Taking or returning any chip takes back everyone’s say-so.
- At the showdown the hands are turned over in the order of the red chips, lowest first. The heist works if no hand is weaker than one turned over before it. Two hands of exactly the same strength may sit in either order.
- Each player makes the best five cards from their two and the five on the table. Suits never break a tie.
- Three vaults opened wins it for the whole crew; three alarms and everyone goes down together.
- The boxed game is for three to six. Here bots fill empty seats, so one person can play with a crew.
A fan edition of The Gang (KOSMOS). A round of chips closes itself after ninety seconds.
