This game will be familiar to anyone who frequents Muse, Park 97, MT or any club with a high table-to-dance floor ratio. The game starts with a bid: everyone shakes up the five dice in their cup and one player guesses how many of a certain number are showing under all the cups on the table (e.g. “six threes”; ones are wild). Subsequent players have to one-up whoever just went before them by either bidding a higher quantity (e.g. “seven threes) or a higher die number (e.g. “six fours”). The game escalates until a player calls—if whoever just bid has overshot the actual dice that show, they ganbei.

You may think this is mostly a guessing game, but play with anyone who has put in years of practice—say, over the bar at one of those talking-girl establishments at the top of Huashan Lu—and you will get owned. It’s a game of bluffing and lies, and no one can beat a salty old xiaojie when it comes to these skills. Additional fun is to be had by elaborate dice-scooping and rattling routines and by thumping your cup on the table so hard that the floor shakes.

Difficulty: (Sober) 3 out of 5, (Drunk) 5 out of 5

Number of Players: 2 or more