How to Play

The Gang

3-6 players 20-20 min 7.6 Board Game Geek Rating

In this cooperative poker heist, players secretly predict their hand strength using chips, then community cards are revealed Texas Hold'em style. Without communication, teammates must accurately assess whether their predictions match their actual hand rankings. Successfully judging all hands simultaneously opens a bank vault, while failures trigger alarms. Win by cracking three vaults before setting off three alarms.

Published 2024

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Prepare vault and alarm cards

Lay the three alarm cards and three vault cards with gray sides up at the edge of the playing area

Distribute overview cards

Each player receives one "Gameplay" overview card and one "Hand Ranking" overview card

Select chips by player count

Sort out any chips with a higher star value than the number of players and return them to the box

Arrange chips by color

Place the remaining chips sorted by color (white, yellow, orange, red) on the edge of the playing surface with the light side facing up

Set aside advanced components

Leave challenge cards and specialist cards in the box for the basic game

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Deal pocket cards

Shuffle the 52 playing cards and deal two cards face down to each player; place the remaining deck face down in the center

Round 1 - Take white chips

Lay out white chips in the center; all players simultaneously take chips to indicate their estimated hand strength relative to others

Round 2 (The Flop)

Reveal three community cards face up in the center, then lay out and take yellow chips the same way

Round 3 (The Turn)

Reveal one additional community card, then lay out and take orange chips

Round 4 (The River)

Reveal one final community card (five total), then lay out and take red chips

Arrange chips visibly

Keep all collected chips in a row in front of you so others can track how your evaluations change across rounds

Communication restriction

You may not show, say, or hint at your pocket cards; you cannot share information you know only because of your own hand

Winning

How to claim victory.

Proceed to showdown

After Round 4, reveal hands in ascending order starting with the player holding the red 1-star chip

Declare best hand

Each player announces their best possible five-card poker hand using their two pocket cards and five community cards

Evaluate correct order

If all players reveal equally strong or stronger hands in sequence without error, the heist succeeds

Successful heist

Flip one vault card to the gold side

Failed heist

If any player reveals a weaker hand than a previously revealed hand, the order was wrong; flip one alarm card to the red side

Handle true ties

When players have identical hands, the order of their chips relative to each other is irrelevant, but ranking compared to all other players must still be correct

Win condition

Win the game by flipping three vault cards to the gold side

Lose condition

Lose the game if three alarm cards are flipped to the red side