Cockroach Poker is all about bluffing…
Nothing to do with Poker…
Cockroach Poker is a reverse set collection game that has nothing to do with poker – except that the game is all about bluffing, but with cards that show cockroaches, rats and stink bugs instead of queens, 10s and aces. The goal of the game is to force another player to collect 4 of any one type of critter.
See, nothing to do with Poker.
The deck of 64 cards has 8 copies of 8 different animals, the back of the cards reminds you which animals are in the game. It’s not always clear which is which to be honest but you get the idea.
You pick one of those cards, pass it face down to a player and tell them what it is… You can tell the truth, or you can lie. Either way, you must pass the card and name a bug.
That player can look at it and pass it on to someone else either claiming it’s the same thing or changing the claim. This is done most often and can happen quite a few times per card.
Instead of looking, you can agree or disagree with what they are telling you the card is. If you’re right the player that passed you the card keeps it face up, if you’re wrong you keep it.
The first player to get 4 animals of one type loses and everyone else wins.
Cockroach Poker Summary
It’s a simple bluffing game that I enjoyed.
I do prefer Coyote though… That is more fun to me and the twists and turns of the special cards are a lot of fun.
Update June 2018
Played it once or twice more I think and I don’t like it. Once you get behind you get picked on and it’s hard to recover. I mean in my last game I did and won. But that’s due in the most part to my sobriety to my skill in the game 🙂
Still, I 100% prefer Coyote and pretty much every other game in this bluffing line. I can’t think of any right now but I bet there are a lot out there! 🙂
Jesta ThaRogue