Card3.png

Ride the Bus

(Also called Irish Poker)

Overview: A quick paced card game where how much you drink is determined by your ability to guess cards (red or black, high or low, inside or out, suit). The losing player is put on the hot seat and may be forced to drink quite a bit.

No. of Players: 4+

Supplies:

  • Deck of cards

Setup: Shuffle all cards and select someone to be the dealer. Dealer gives 4 cards face-down to each player. Players do not look at their cards.

Dealer also sets out 2 rows of 4 cards each face-down in the center of the table.

How to Play:

  1. Going around the circle of players, each player guesses whether their first card is red or black before flipping it over. If guessed correctly, player gives 1 drink to another player, if guessed incorrectly, player drinks 1.

  2. For the 2nd card, players guess whether it will be higher or lower than their 1st card, with aces high. If guessed correctly, player gives 2 drinks to other players (can be 2 to same player or split between players), if guessed incorrectly, player drinks 2.

  3. For the 3rd card, players guess whether it will be inside or outside their 1st and 2nd cards. If the 3rd card is the same as either the 1st or 2nd card you lose for both outside and inside guesses. You can guess that it will be the same as the 1st or 2nd card instead of inside or outside, but this is.. statistically improbable. If guessed correctly, player gives 3 drinks to other players (can be 3 to same player or split between players), if guessed incorrectly, player drinks 3.

  4. For the 4th and final card, players try to guess the suit. Players take their face down card and show it to the dealer without looking at the card. The dealer will tell them if they have the suit of their 4th card in their first 3 cards or not, before the player guesses. If guessed correctly, player gives 4 drinks to other players (can be 4 to same player or split between players), if guessed incorrectly, player drinks 4.

  5. After all player cards have been flipped over, play continues with the 8 cards in the center of the table. The first row of 4 is the "give a drink" round and the second row of 4 is the "take a drink" round. The objective at this point of the game is to get rid of all your cards, otherwise you will ride the bus.

  6. Dealer flips the first card in one of the rows and any player who has a card of the same value places their card on top of the flipped card and gives 2 drinks. If you have multiple of the same card place all of them and multiply your drinks.

  7. Play continues similarly for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th card in the row, but the drink values for these cards are give 4, give 6, and give 8, respectively. If one of the flipped cards is the same value as one that has previously been flipped, take a card from the remaining deck of cards and place it over the duplicate card, repeating as necessary until a new card value is found.

  8. Play continues similarly for the 2nd row of cards, but these cards require players to drink 2, drink 4, drink 6, and drink 8 if they place their cards in the pile.

  9. After all cards have been flipped over, the player with the most cards remaining in their hand is the loser and must ride the bus. If multiple players are left with the same amount of cards, continue as above by drawing cards from the remaining deck until one player is left with more cards than the others.

  10. Re-shuffle the cards and deal 4 to the losing player, face down. The losing player must guess all 4 cards correctly, similar to rules 1-4 above (red or black, high or low, inside or out, suit). If the player guesses incorrectly at any point, the player must drink and the cards are removed and replaced with 4 new face down cards. This continues and the loser must keep drinking and guessing until they correctly guess all 4 cards in a row.

Additional Rules:

  • The drink values for the 8 cards in the center of the table can be changed from 2, 4, 6, 8 to 1, 2, 3, 4 for a less aggressive play style.

  • Showing the dealer the suit of the 4th card and having them tell the player whether or not they have the suit can be removed to make the game more difficult.