Higher or Lower

Higher or Lower is the simplest of the drinking games for 2: flip a card, guess whether the next one is higher or lower, and drink when you are wrong. It works with a full party too, and the pass rule turns a guessing game into a game of handing your pile to someone else at the worst possible moment. If you have played the last round of Bus Driver, you already know the mechanic. This is that round on its own, with sharper teeth.

What you need

• A standard 52-card deck, jokers out
• A drink for each player
• 2 or more players. It is built for two and still works with eight
• A flat surface with room for one face-up pile

Setup

1. Shuffle the deck and put it face down in the middle. Keep it within reach of everyone.
2. Agree on the tie rule before the first card. If the next card is the same value as the one showing, it counts as a wrong guess at most tables. Some play it as a correct guess, some as a drink for everyone. Vote, then do not revisit it.
3. Agree on the Ace. Ace is low by default. See the variations for Ace high or Ace as a free card.
4. Pick a first player. Youngest player, or whoever lost the last game.

How to play Higher or Lower

1. Flip the top card face up to start the pile. This is the card you are guessing against.
2. Say “higher” or “lower”, then flip the next card onto the pile. Compare it to the card that was showing. Ace is low and King is high. Suits do not matter.
3. If you were wrong, drink once for every card showing. Count the cards in the pile before the one that beat you. One card showing means one drink, five cards showing means five. Then the pile is cleared, the card that beat you stays as the new starting card, and play moves to the next player.
4. If you were right, guess again against the new top card. The pile grows by one each time. You keep going until you are wrong or you pass.
5. You may pass only after taking at least three cards. Three correct guesses on your turn is the minimum. Before that, you have to keep guessing.
6. When you pass, the next player starts where you left off. They guess against the card you stopped on, and the whole pile stays in place. If they miss on their first guess, they drink for every card you built up.
7. Reshuffle when the deck runs out. Or stop there. A full deck is a complete game for two people.

That pass rule is the whole game. A pile of six cards is six drinks for whoever misses next, so the strategy is to build a pile and hand it on. The player you pass to can pass it straight back after three cards, which is how two people end up staring at a twelve-card pile nobody wants.

Odds table

The right call depends only on the card showing. These are the odds from a full deck with one card out, before you count what has already been played. A tie is about 6 percent on every card, so the higher and lower columns do not add up to 100.

Card showing	Chance next card is higher	Chance next card is lower	Safe call
Ace	94%	0%	Higher
2	86%	8%	Higher
3	78%	16%	Higher
4	71%	24%	Higher
5	63%	31%	Higher
6	55%	39%	Higher, barely
7	47%	47%	Coin flip
8	39%	55%	Lower, barely
9	31%	63%	Lower
10	24%	71%	Lower
Jack	16%	78%	Lower
Queen	8%	86%	Lower
King	0%	94%	Lower

Counting helps late in the deck. If three Kings are gone and a Queen is showing, “higher” is close to hopeless. If every 2 has been played and a 3 comes up, “lower” cannot hit.

Variations and house rules

• High Low, Hi Lo, Over Under. Same game, different names. Over Under is the one you hear in bars. The rules do not change; only the tie rule and the Ace rule ever differ between groups, which is why both go in the setup.
• Number guessing version. No cards. One player secretly writes down a number from 1 to 100. Going around the table, each player guesses a number and is told “higher” or “lower”. Every wrong guess is a sip, the range narrows each time, and the player who lands on the exact number finishes their drink. Then they set the next number. Good for a bar where nobody brought a deck.
• How many cards until you drink. Before your turn, call how many cards you will get right in a row, from one to ten. Hit your number and you can stop and hand out that many drinks. Miss before you reach it and you drink the number you called. Calling high is brave and rarely wise.
• Ace high. Ace beats King. Swap the top and bottom rows of the odds table and everything else stays the same.
• Ace is free. The Webtender version. Ace counts as both high and low, so any guess against an Ace is correct. You still flip, and the pile still grows.
• Tie means everyone drinks. Instead of the guesser taking the pile, a matching card makes the whole table drink once. Keeps the group involved during a long two-player pile.
• Streak bonus. Five correct guesses in a row and you hand a drink to anyone at the table. Ten in a row and you hand out a shot, which in a two-player game does not leave much choice.
• Suit call for double. Before you flip, call the color as well as higher or lower. Get both right and the pile counts double for whoever misses next. Get the color wrong and you drink one extra, even if higher or lower was right.
• Pile reset on pass. A softer version: passing clears the pile, so the next player starts fresh from the top card. Removes the strategy and most of the drinking, which is sometimes the point.

Tips

• Never guess against a 7 if you can help it. Plan your third card so you pass on anything between 6 and 8 and leave the coin flip to the next person.
• Watch the discard pile. Higher or Lower is one of the few drinking games where paying attention changes the odds, and by the second half of the deck, counting what is gone turns a guess into a calculation.
• Use sips, not gulps, with two players. A twelve-card pile is twelve drinks for one person in about five seconds, which is more than it sounds like at card 40.
• Decide on the tie and Ace rules out loud before the first flip. Every argument this game produces comes from those two cards.