Milan Rules - A Variation

This is a copy pasted text from an Archived link

With many thanks to Mr David Semeria from the Milan School.

As in Traditional (Hollywood Rules), all the players start off with 0-3 coins in the right hand and the ‘Coin Count’ refers to the total coins held in all the right hands. However, the aim of this game is not to guess the coin count straight-off. In Milan Rules Spoof the players make increasingly higher bids (guesses on the coin count) until someone believes a bid is too high. Since you win by being the last one in the game, you try to make your bids as low as possible and hope you don’t get called.

He who was ‘crap’ (i.e. the first player out from the previous game) starts off with the first bid. The first player could, and very often does, start with a bid of ‘one’. The next player (the direction is decided by the first player and can vary from round to round) now has a choice: he can RAISE the bid (for example by saying ‘two’ or ‘three’) or he can CALL his opponent, which he does by opening his right hand. Once a player is called, all the other players also open their hands and the coins are counted. If there are AT LEAST as many coins as the bid, then the caller loses. Alternatively, if the coin count is less than the bid then it is the called player who loses. A losing player loses a coin. If he had only one coin left then he’s out of the game.

A round proceeds with increasing bids until someone is called. After someone loses a coin, a new round starts with the total coin count reduced by one. The new round is initiated by whoever lost a coin in the preceding round. When all the players apart from one are out, then the remaining player is the winner and pockets the large wad of notes in the center of the table.

That is the basic outline of the game, but to fully enjoy Milan Rules Spoof you must be aware of the three special calls:

The ‘Cliff’ call: This is an extremely dangerous / useful call. When a player calls Cliff he is saying that he thinks the preceding bid is EXACTLY equal to the coin count. If he is wrong he loses a coin, as usual. But if he is right, he WINS a coin. This is the only way a player can increase his coin count and is the main reason end games can last a long time. It is also the basis for some amazing come-backs. Whoever called Cliff, win or lose, starts the bidding in the next round (unless he got it wrong and only had one coin, and so is now out). Cliff is generally used when there are a small number of coins on the table, and hence the odds of being wrong are less enormous. There are, however, some persistent Cliffers, who tend to drink a lot, call Cliff on totals like ‘18’ and go home with no money.

The ‘Spoof’ call. Largely superceded by the Cliff call, the Spoof call is now used mainly for defensive purposes. You would say Spoof if you thought the maximum number of coins was being held. For example, in a game with 4 players all with 3 coins the maximum would be 12. If someone bid 12 to you then you obviously can’t say 13, but believing there are actually 12 you don’t want to call him either. In the this case you would say “Spoof”, meaning “they’re all there’. If indeed they are all there, then the round is a DRAW and nobody loses a coin whereas if you’re wrong then you lose a coin. The Spoof call is now rarely used because, as in the preceding example, if you thought the preceding call was EXACTLY right you would say Cliff instead of Spoof, because if you’re right with Cliff you win a coin rather than it being a draw.

So when is Spoof used? Spoof can be used by cunning players to prevent the next player making a Cliff call. Let’s take the above example, instead of saying 12, and thereby leaving the Cliff call open to you, the player before you can say Spoof. He, too, believes they’re all there but he can’t Cliff it because the bid to him was not 12. By saying Spoof he can at least stop you from winning a coin with a successful Cliff call

The ‘Zero’ call. Only for special occasions. If you start a round by saying Zero, then everyone must automatically open their hands. If there are no coins out , then everyone apart from you loses a coin. If there are one or more coins then you lose coin. All most exclusively used in one on one end games, when there aren’t many coins.

Bluffing

The main disadvantage of the Hollywood Rules (noble as they are) is that a player only gets one bite at the cherry, and so has no opportunity (or advantage) in misleading the other players. In Milan Rules, there is much scope for talking up the table. This can be done both via aggressive bids (when holding little or nothing) and by making very bullish statements such as ‘Mitt-full! Mitt-full !’ Inevitably, some players (especially the inexperienced) will believe all the hype and will continue to bid up the table. When someone gets sucked into a big bid only to find that there were hardly any coins out, this is known as a ‘Hoover’.

Psychology

Many mathematically-minded players have sat down to play Milan Rules and quickly developed strategies based on ‘Expected Values’, ‘Variance’ etc. They lose. Always. Milan Rules is all about body language and nerves. Tell-tale signs such nervous twitches, beads of sweat, furrowed brows and unconfident speech patterns can be detected by the skilled spoofer to defeat the unwary. In a fiendish twist on this, skilled players fake the tell tale signs so as to suck-in other skilled players who are looking for them. Beware of the expert player looking indecisive or distressed. It’s almost certainly a double-bluff. Along the same lines, beware of the ‘Shearn Wobble’ – this is a feeble attempt at intimidation which involves making the ‘I’m about to open my hand’ gesture and at the last moment keeping the hand closed. The inexperienced player will look terrified if he thinks he’s about to be called (and holding nothing) or alternatively very smug (when holding large). The perpetrator of the Shearn Wobble will analyze the response and then adjust his call accordingly. Attempts to ban the Shearn Wobble have been repeatedly vetoed by a certain Mr. A.L. Shearn.

The Law of Cliff

It is an amazing and yet undeniable fact that a player who gains an extra coin from a successful Cliff call will almost certainly lose it again very rapidly. This can almost certainly be explained by ‘Overconfidence’ which is what happens when a player suddenly starts to believe he has the superhuman ability to read the other players’ minds. When a player gives back his recently won Cliff coin, it is traditional for the other players to look skywards and pronounce solemnly: “Cliff giveth an Cliff taketh away”.

Gloating

A major difference between the noble and gentlemanly conventions of the Hollywood game and those of Milan Rules lies in the attitude to gloating. Far from being a punishable offence, gloating is the principal reason for playing Milan Rules. When the first player is out of the game, tradition warrants he be encouraged by the remaining players to “Start us off” and to “Hurry up”. The losing player must not display any sign of irritation at this treatment as it will only encourage the others to carry on. The winner of a game in Milan Rules is quite free to tell all the other players that they are hopeless and that it was a pleasure doing business with them. In fact, the failure of a winning player to gloat will be viewed with much suspicion and will inevitably lead to the other players paying close attention to this player’s hands in all subsequent games.

History

Just for the record, Milan Rules Spoof is based on Bid Spoof, with the addition of the Zero and Cliff calls. The Cliff call was a major innovation and was invented by Adam Cleary, David Semeria and Andrew Shearn in the “Trottoir” Bar in Milan in the mid Nineties. As to the origins of Bid Spoof itself, no-one is quite sure, although the perennially modest Mr. Cleary thinks he may have invented that too.