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L I A R S P O K E R Game Utility Version 1.0 January 16, 1988 By David L. Evans 2512 North 13 1/2 Street Terre Haute, IN 47804 Liars Poker Version 1.0 Copyright 1988 By D. L. Evans Table Of Contents ----------------- Page I. Introduction to Liars Poker ............................ 1 Hardware Requirements .................................. 1 Player and Game Requirements ........................... 1 What is Liars Poker? ................................... 1 Registering your Liars Poker Game Utility .............. 2 II. How To Play Liars Poker ................................ 3 What Are The Rules? .................................... 3 Some Basic Strategy .................................... 4 III. How To Use The Liars Poker Game Utility ................ 6 Starting Liars Poker ................................... 6 The Main Menu .......................................... 7 BEGIN ............................................. 7 RESTORE ........................................... 7 ADD ............................................... 8 EDIT .............................................. 8 PRINT ............................................. 8 DISPLAY ........................................... 8 SELECT ............................................ 9 ! ( shell ) ....................................... 9 QUIT .............................................. 9 Errors and Messages .................................... 9 Internal Errors ................................... 9 External Errors ................................... 10 I. Introduction To Liars Poker. Hardware Requirements * An IBM Personal Computer or "compatible" running MS-DOS or PC-DOS 2.0 or later. * One 5 1/4" 360K Double Sided Double Density, or 5 1/4" 1.2 MB High Density, disk drive. * 141K RAM available memory. NOTE: An 80 ( or more ) column printer is recommended. Player and Game Requirements * 2 or more players required. * Maximum of 20 players allowed. * Maximum of 20 games allowed for each player. What is Liars Poker? This Liars Poker program is not a game, but rather a game utility. This program simplifies and improves the original game of Liars Poker. The game is still played as always. The computer does not play the game, but it does practically everything else. Liars Poker is not a new game. I did not invent the original game of liars poker and I don't know who did. This Liars Poker Game Utility however, is unique. The original game was/is traditionally played using dollar bill serial numbers for wagering. The Liars Poker Game Utility generates eight digit random numbers. These numbers can then be substituted for the dollar bill serial numbers needed to play the game. The Liars Poker Game Utility offers benefits over the original version of the game. Some of these advantages will be discussed, some will be discovered by using the Liars Poker Game Utility. I have included a section in this document for those that have never played Liars Poker before. There I will provide you with the basic rules of Liars Poker. If you have never played Liars Poker before, get some friends together and give it a try. WARNING. Some states have laws against pari-mutuel betting. Playing Liars Poker for money in such a state would be against the law. 1 If you have played the game of Liars Poker before, then you could start using the Liars Poker Game Utility right after reading the rest of this introduction. But if you do, please come back later and finish the sections pertinent to yourself. Be sure and copy the LPOKER.DOC and LPOKER.EXE files to another disk, and keep your original disk in a safe place. Persons with registered copies should also copy the BLACKJAK.EXE and BLACKJAK.DOC files to the other disk. Registering your Liars Poker Game Utility. If you find the Liars Poker Game Utility useful, a contribution of $ 5.00 would be greatly appreciated. This contribution will register you with me as a user of the Liars Poker Game Utility, entitling you to notification of future releases of the Liars Poker Game Utility. If you include, with your contribution, a self addressed stamped disk mailer and a blank formatted 5 1/4" 360K DS/DD disk, I will include the following for free of charge; LPOKER.EXE An official copy of the Liars Poker Game Utility. LPOKER.DOC The official documentation on how to play Liars Poker and use the game utility. BLACKJAK.EXE * Sharpen your Blackjack skills playing one on one against a casino Blackjack Dealer. A simulation of a popular version of the great game of Blackjack. In- cludes Splits, Double Downs, Insurance Bets and more. BLACKJAK.DOC * Complete instructions for playing the BLACKJAK.EXE ver- sion of Blackjack. * Note: BLACKJAK.EXE and BLACKJAK.DOC are only available through the registration of the Liars Poker Game Utility. The Blackjack program has never been submitted to any distributor or user group. Please register Liars Poker by sending a $ 5.00 contribution to: David L. Evans 2512 North 13 1/2 Street Terre Haute, IN 47804 Unmodified copies of the Liars Poker Game Utility and documentation may be made for your own use, to give free of charge to others, or to distribute within a user group. User groups may charge a fee up to $7.50 ( for duplication costs ) to distribute the Liars Poker Game Utility and documen- tation. All other organizations may not charge a fee. No person or or- ganization may give or sell the Blackjack program or documentation to others. BLACKJAK.EXE and BLACKJAK.DOC are only to be made available to per- sons registering their use of the Liars Poker Game Utility. 2 II. How To Play Liars Poker. What Are The Rules? Each player has an eight digit number for the game in play. Each digit represents one of eight "cards" that makes up a players' poker hand. The numbers ( or "cards" ) are valued as follows; NO. VALUE --- ----- 1 - Ace. Highest Value. 0 - Ten. Second highest value. 9 - Nine. 8 - Eight. 7 - Seven. 6 - Six. 5 - Five. 4 - Four. 3 - Three. 2 - Two. Lowest value. The players usually sit in a large circle. A player is chosen to lead. Usually the player that won or lost the last game "outright" ( ex- plained later ) leads the next game. The play moves in a clockwise direction. If the last winner/looser is not present, the person to the left of the last winner/looser leads. Otherwise, flip a coin or some- thing. It's not that critical. Each player has the same predetermined amount at risk. This amount should be one quarter per player minimum, to a one dollar per player maximum. Decide on the amount before beginning. I am going to assume the predetermined amount to be one quarter for the examples in this document, but it is really up to the group of players. Each player takes a turn at bidding. A bid may be one or more of "a kind" only. No Full Houses or Straights, only "like kinds" are al- lowed. Some example legal bids are; Quantity Number Bid Bid ("card") Actual Bid - As Called -------- ------------ ---------------------- ( 1 ) 2 "One 2" ( "One Deuce" ) ( 3 ) 1 "Three Aces" ( 12 ) 7 "Twelve 7's" ( 4 ) 0 "Four Tens" A bid is basically an estimate of how many of a certain number are in all the players hands combined. The bidders' estimates are based on the bidders' game numbers, the number of players, the bidding of the players and on the players themselves. 3 Each player must either overbid the last bidder, or call the last bid- der a liar. If you choose to overbid the last bidder, then the next player must either call you a liar or overbid you. The relationship of the value of bids is as follows; LOWER BID <---- V A L U E ----> HIGHER BID (1)2 thru (1)Ace, (2)2's thru (2)Aces, (3)2's thru (3)Aces ... When all players have said liar, to the same player and bid, the hands are called. All players indicate the quantity of the bid number that they have for the current game. The quantities are totaled. If there are as many numbers as bid ( or more ), each player must pay the bidder a quarter. If there are not as numbers as bid, the bidder must pay each player a quarter. The bidder in these two examples either wins, or looses, "outright". "Outright" means winning or loosing the maximum possible amount. WARN- ING. A player loosing outright to nineteen other players with a quarter as the predetermined wager would have to pay out $ 4.75. On the other hand, the same player could win the $ 4.75 and register the use of this program. Believe it or not, that is all the rules. Beyond the above mentioned rules, anything goes. That's why it's called Liars Poker. The object is to drive the bid up as high as possible, using any devious means possible, while trying to not get caught short yourself. Some Basic Strategy. You don't always have to bid to drive the bid up. Academy award win- ning acting performances are allowed. Act like you are about to bid higher, then change your mind after a long pause. Make a comment like; "Well, I imagine that's a good bet, but I'll pass." You really think it is a marginal bet, but you hope some other sucker will bid even higher ( by making him think you are just being careful ). The only time lying is not allowed is when the hands are called. After all players have called one bidder a liar, you must honestly tell how many of the bid number you have. You will find That the Liars Poker Game Utility can provide fast checking of any players' numbers. You will be easily caught if another player suspects your being dishonest. Lie all you can when playing the game but don't cheat. The best players win and loose less games outright than most players. The tendency to want to win "IT ALL" is more temptation than most can stand. The more conservative player will generally do better. 4 When in doubt, call the bidder a liar. You will only be risking the minimum amount. Generally more games are lost outright than won. You would probably come out ahead more than fifty percent of the time if you never bid at all. Saying "liar" is similar to passing. So you can just keep passing, knowing there's a good chance that some eager beaver will usually work himself into going bust. Liars Poker is one of Americas great underground games. I hope you en- joy playing it. 5 III. How To Use The Liars Poker Game Utility. In the course of the Liars Poker Game Utilities' operation it creates four files. The names of these files are LPOKER.DBF, LPOKERNO.DBF, LPOKER.BAK and LPOKERNO.BAK. These files are created and maintained in the current directory ( current at the time LPOKER.EXE is used ). Whether you copy the LPOKER.EXE and LPOKER.DOC files to a hard disk or to a floppy, you have the option of executing Liars Poker from any drive, disk or directory, including RAM. You can start LPOKER.EXE from any directory by typing; [drive:][\path\]LPOKER Note: Fill in "[]"s with your specs. and pressing <ENTER>. The Liars Poker Game Utility maintains two database files ( LPOKER.DBF and LPOKERNO.DBF ). One of the files contains all the players names and their associated game numbers. If you start Liars Poker from the current directory of a floppy disk ( see Starting Liars Poker ), you can remove the disk between sessions and stash it in a safe place. This will deter persons from cheating. A person would have to obtain the disk before being able to view game data. The other two files ( LPOKER.BAK and LPOKERNO.BAK ) are the BAK files for their associated *.DBF files. These BAK files are created and maintained in the same directory as the database files. These files are security against accidentally beginning a new game when you really meant to restore an old one. Refer to the description of the RESTORE function, of the main menu, for further details on the two BAK files. The two *.DBF and two *.BAK files require a total of 7408 bytes of free disk space in the current directory from which Liars Poker is started. NOTE: When choosing RESTORE from the main menu, the LPOKER.DBF and LPOKERNO.DBF files must be in the current directory. Starting Liars Poker. With LPOKER.EXE in the current directory type "LPOKER" and press <ENTER>. With LPOKER.EXE in other than the current directory, type [drive:][\path\]LPOKER ( Fill in "[]"s with your specs ) and press <ENTER>. The main menu will appear. 6 The Main Menu. The main menu provides nine functions. RESTORE ... Restore an old game from database. BEGIN ..... Begin a new game of Liars Poker. ADD ....... Add new liars (players) to the game. EDIT ...... Edit (or just browse) liars names. PRINT ..... Print all numbers on the printer. DISPLAY ... Display all numbers on the screen. SELECT .... Select liars to PRINT or DISPLAY. ! ......... Exit temporarily to a DOS shell. QUIT ...... Quit and save all data to database. BEGIN begins a new game. You enter the number of players and the number of games that you want. You are asked to confirm your entries. At this point you may press <ESCAPE> if you mistakenly meant to RESTORE in- stead of BEGIN. WARNING, any key other than <ESCAPE> or <N> or <n> is considered a "Y" by default. After a "Y" confirmation, the "Enter / Edit Names" screen appears. Here you enter the players names. Edit each entry using the keys from the on screen menu. Press <ENTER> when your through. Blank and identi- cal entries are not allowed. If you make a mistake don't worry, you can later select EDIT from the main menu and change or correct any names. After you enter all the players names you are returned to the main menu. You may abandon the "Enter / Edit Names" screen, and return to the main menu prematurely, by pressing <ESCAPE>. If <ESCAPE> is pressed, the data entered using the BEGIN function is discarded. Any entry er- rors must be corrected before <ESCAPE> can be used ( see Errors and Messages ). RESTORE restores an old game. A copy of all current game data is maintained in two database files in the current directory. To use the data in these database files; Make your current directory the same one LPOKER.DBF and LPOKERNO.DBF are in. Select RESTORE from the main menu of Liars Poker. The RESTORE function makes it possible to select QUIT, from the main menu, right after all players have obtained their game numbers. This frees the computer for other uses. 7 The database may be RESTORED again and again without disturbing any data, until the BEGIN function is used. The BEGIN function is not con- sidered to be used if BEGIN is abandoned ( by pressing <ESCAPE> ) before it returns control to the main menu. At any time before the BEGIN function is used, Liars Poker may be started and RESTOREd. After using the RESTORE function you may PRINT a players' lost game sheet, ADD one or more players to the game, or do anything else the game al- lows. If you want to RESTORE the database files that were active before the BEGIN function was used, you must first rename the LPOKER.BAK and LPOKERNO.BAK files to LPOKER.DBF and LPOKERNO.DBF respectively. This must be done from outside the Liars Poker environment ( or from within a shell while inside the Liars Poker environment ). Refer to your DOS manual for instructions on using the DOS RENAME command. ADD adds new players to the current game. This function appends new data to the current database files. The original data remains undisturbed. EDIT edits or browses the players names. Blank or identical entries are not allowed. PRINT ( See SELECT ) prints all the players' numbers ( unless interrupted with the <ESCAPE> key ). To conserve paper on those printers with tractor feeds to the wrong side of the printer papers' edge ( standard for most printers ), the paper is advanced 6 1/6" down the page then pauses before starting to print. The previous player then removes his game sheet. The next players' numbers don't start printing until a key is pressed. After the last players' numbers are printed, or the <ESCAPE> key is pressed, the printer does the two form feeds necessary to position the paper for removal ( printer must be an 11" page at 6 lines/inch ). If you are lucky enough to have a printer that doesn't waste a sheet of paper every run, then use SELECT instead of PRINT ( refer to the section discussing SELECT ). DISPLAY ( See SELECT ) displays all the players numbers on the monitor ( unless interrupted with the <ESCAPE> key ). This function has two purposes. First, if you don't have a printer, I don't want you to feel left out. The DISPLAY function makes it easy for each player to privately write down his game numbers. Second, the DISPLAY function allows checking ( after a session of games is completed ) of all players numbers. 8 SELECT selects certain players for which to PRINT or DISPLAY game numbers. Use this function to PRINT or DISPLAY an ADDed players' game numbers, or to PRINT or DISPLAY a players' lost game numbers. This function is also useful for printers designed with the tractor on the correct side of the papers' edge ( as discussed in the PRINT section of this document ). For these printers, SELECT all the names from the list in- stead of using the PRINT function. The extra form feed will not be generated after the last players' numbers are printed, thus conserving printer paper. Use the Up and Down cursor keys to move the highlighted bar to the name you want to SELECT for the queue. Press <ENTER> with your selec- tion highlighted. The number is now selected for the queue. Names in the queue are indicated by flashing. A selection may be removed from the queue by selecting it a second time. When you finish SELECTing, PRINT or DISPLAY your selections using the function keys outlined in the on screen menu. After SELECT has finished ( or has been prematurely abandoned by pressing the <ESCAPE> key ) you are returned to the main menu. ! ( shell ) exits you temporarily to a DOS shell while Liars Poker stands by in RAM. In this shell you can perform any task, or run any program, that you normally could with the operating system and 141K less avail- able memory than normal ( LPOKER.EXE uses 141K RAM ). To leave the shell and return to Liars Poker, type EXIT and press <ENTER>. To do a shell, a copy of COMMAND.COM must be where COMSPEC says it is ( refer to your DOS manual, for more information ). QUIT quits Liars Poker, closes any open database files, and returns the user to the operating system. Note that the data is actually saved before QUIT is selected. The message to the contrary, on the main menu, is more to make a user aware of the database than it is to provide accurate technical information. Errors and Messages. There are two kinds of errors, internal and external. An internal er- ror is an error that is handled by the Liars Poker environment. An ex- ternal error is an error that the Liars Poker environment does not handle. Internal Errors. If an internal error is detected, it is followed by a message prompt- ing the user as to what action ( if any ) to take. After correcting an internal error, the Liars Poker Game Utility proceeds as usual. 9 At the main menu you may get a "Please BEGIN or RESTORE first" mes- sage. This indicates that Liars Poker is not ready to continue until the BEGIN or RESTORE function is used. If you BEGIN or RESTORE again but still get this message, refer to and read the documentation on the BEGIN and RESTORE functions. The "All Data Restored" message only confirms that the RESTORE func- tion has been activated. If the required *.DBF files are not in the current directory, the data will not be restored but the "All Data Restored" message will still be displayed. When an attempt is made to use this falsely restored data, the "Please BEGIN or RESTORE first" message will indicate the data is not properly restored. External Errors. If an external error occurs, a message is displayed indicating the er- ror type, and control is returned to the operating system. You should correct the cause of the error before restarting Liars Poker. Note that the "Illegal function call" error is usually caused by im- proper setup of the Liars Poker Game Utility. For example, if you do a shell (!) and COMMAND.COM is not where COMSPEC says it is, an "Illegal function call" error will occur. Most of the other external error mes- sages are descriptive enough to identify the cause of the error. Refer to your DOS manual for help with external errors. Liars Poker Version 1.0 Copyright 1988 By D. L. Evans 10