The Gang rules: how to play and how to win

The Gang quick rules

The goal

The Gang is cooperative poker: you all win or lose together. In each heist, you must rank yourselves, from the weakest hand to the strongest, without showing or talking about your cards. A correct ranking opens a vault; open three before you trip three alarms.

A heist

A heist is played in four rounds, like a hand of Texas Hold’em. Everyone gets two hidden pocket cards, then three community cards are flipped, then a fourth and a fifth. Each round, everyone takes a chip of that round’s color: white, yellow, orange, then red.

The chips

The more stars a chip has, the stronger you think your hand is. Everyone plays at the same time: you may take a chip from the middle or from in front of another player, and put yours back in the middle. But you never hold two chips of the same round, and you never place a chip in front of someone. The round ends when everyone has a chip.

What you may say

You may talk about anything except your cards and your hand: the chips are your only language. Never bluff, and keep earlier rounds’ chips in front of you, in order, to show how your estimate changes.

The Showdown

Only the red chips count. From the one-star chip up, each player reveals their cards and announces their best five-card hand. If each hand is at least as strong as the one before, flip a vault; if not, a single alarm, however many mistakes there were.

Hand rankings

Your hand is the best five cards out of your two pocket cards and the five community cards. From weakest to strongest: high card, one pair, two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush and royal flush. With equal hands, the higher one wins, then the kicker.

End of the game

A game lasts three to five heists. As soon as three vaults are open, the gang wins; as soon as three alarms are tripped, it loses.

Beginner traps

Only the red chip counts: the others help you understand each other. Change your mind when the community cards change things, and remember they serve everyone: a pair in the middle is a pair for each player.

Advanced, Professional and Master Thief Modes

In Advanced Mode, a Challenge card makes the heist after a success harder, and a Specialist card helps after a failure. In Professional Mode, one Challenge stays active for the whole game. In Master Thief Mode, two Challenges are always active and two alarms are enough to lose.

With More Players

Up to ten can play, with 0, 7 and 8 chips. In Round 4, a player who isn’t sure may take an exit chip on top of their red chip: their hand doesn’t count at the Showdown.

How to win The Gang

No points

The Gang doesn’t keep score: the whole gang wins or loses together.

Victory

Three vaults open, which means three correctly ranked heists.

Defeat

Three alarms tripped, one per incorrectly ranked heist; two are enough in Master Thief Mode.

What Ludingo records

The table’s result, and for the record the game mode, the number of alarms and, with More Players, the chosen level.

Example ending

With 4 players, the Showdown reveals: Jake (1 star) and Mia (2 stars) have exactly the same hand, 2-2-A-10-7; Alex (3 stars) has 2-2-A-J-7; Leo (4 stars) has a full house. Jake and Mia are exactly tied, Alex beats them on the second kicker (J over 10) and Leo has the best hand: the ranking is correct, and a vault opens.

Common mistakes

• Thinking white, yellow or orange chips count at the Showdown: only the red ones do.
• Flipping two alarms for two mistakes: it’s a single alarm per failed heist.
• Arguing over the order of two exactly equal hands: it doesn’t matter.
• Forgetting that in Master Thief Mode, two alarms are enough to lose.

How to set up The Gang

Setup takes 2 minutes. Keep only the chips whose star count doesn’t exceed the number of players.