How to play Mia

Mia is played with two dice and a single dice cup that travels around the table. It works for two to eight players. Everyone starts with six lives: use chips, matches or tally marks on paper. The goal is to hang on to your lives the longest, and the way there runs through bold lies and a good nose for when others are lying.

The dice are read with the higher die first. Roll a 5 and a 3 and you have 53. The values rank as follows, from top to bottom:

• Mia: 2 and 1, read as 21, beats everything
• Doubles: two of a kind, from 66 at the top down to 11
• Ordinary rolls: from 65 down to 31, the lowest of all

Learn the order before you start, because Mia rewards quick answers.

The first player shakes the cup, turns it over on the table and peeks at the dice in secret. They then announce a value, true or false. Every announcement must be higher than the previous one in the round.

The next player has three options:

1. Believe it: take the cup, roll in secret and announce something higher.
2. Pass it on blind: hand the cup over without looking and announce a higher value. You are responsible for your claim, even though you have no idea what is under there.
3. Lift the cup: challenge the claim. If the dice show at least the announced value, the doubter loses a life. If it was a lie, the liar loses a life.

Whoever lost a life starts the next round.

When someone announces mia, no higher claim exists. The next player must either lift the cup or give up a life without checking. If a genuine mia is sitting under the cup, the challenge costs two lives. If it was a bluff, the liar loses one life as usual. Many groups make an exposed mia bluff cost two lives as well, so agree on this beforehand.

Run out of lives and you are out of the game. The winner is the last player with lives left. A full game is over quickly, so the losers rarely have to wait long for the next one.

The game comes from Germany, where it goes by Meiern or Mäxchen, and it exists in countless house versions. Some play with three lives for shorter games, others make every exposed lie cost two. If you want the same values without lying and hidden dice, Mexican is played with open rolls. And if you prefer bluffing with more dice, Liar's Dice is the natural next step.

Yes, under these rules each announcement must top the last. That is what pushes the round towards a challenge: sooner or later the claims get so high that somebody has to lie, and then it pays to have been paying attention. Some house rules accept an equal claim, but agree on that before you start.