Hell of a Deal

Here is a general overview of how to play the game:

Setup

1. Place the community board mats in the center of the table (p. 17). Shuffle the favor cards and curse cards into separate face-down decks on their matching community board spaces (p. 17).
2. Place a temptation token for each player on the "0" space of the temptation track, and place one red used devilish offering token on each devilish offering spot (p. 17). Place 1 yellow soul chip per player into the community board's souls pot, keeping the rest nearby (p. 17).
3. Shuffle the 52-card playing deck and place it face-down on the community board (p. 17). Set up the boss deck by gathering standard boss cards (The Brothers Dreadful, The Boatman, Demona, and Burnie), placing Nick Hauss underneath them, and placing a randomly selected devil card at the very bottom (p. 16).
4. Each player takes a player mat, a set of player chips stacked on matching spaces (earning 2 soul chips), and one face-down favor card (p. 6). Give the dealer button to the host (or the player who played poker most recently) to deal the first round (p. 6).

How a Round Works

A game is played cooperatively against a series of bosses (p. 9). Each round begins by revealing the top boss card, reading its special rules and default minimum hand, and dealing cards to the players and boss (p. 3, 16).

The round proceeds through the following betting and play phases, with actions starting to the left of the dealer button and moving clockwise (p. 14):

• Pre-Flop Betting Phase: Players privately examine their hand and in turn order choose to either Bet a chip or Fold (p. 14). If you bet, you may optionally play one or more favor cards by paying any required costs (p. 14). If you fold, you discard your hand and roll the bones die (p. 3, 22).
• The Flop Betting Phase: Burn 1 card from the deck, deal 3 cards to the flop spaces, and players repeat the bet-or-fold process (p. 3, 6).
• The Turn Betting Phase: Burn 1 card, deal 1 card to the turn space, and players repeat the bet-or-fold process (p. 3, 6).
• The River Betting Phase: Burn 1 card, deal 1 card to the river space, and players repeat the bet-or-fold process (p. 3, 6).
• Showdown Phase: Remaining players and the boss reveal their hands (p. 11, 24). Players create a 5-card final scoring hand using their own cards and up to 4 community cards (p. 24). The boss compares their hole cards plus community cards against their printed default minimum hand, using whichever result is stronger (p. 24, 25).
• Collect Penalties & Rewards: Winning hands earn 1 soul for each soul chip bet, while losing hands lose soul chips and trigger penalties and token flips (p. 11, 25).
• Cleanup: Reset chips, discard active face-up curse cards, pass the dealer button clockwise, and shuffle playing cards for the next round (p. 22).

How the Game Ends

The evidence mentions that you win if you can beat the Devil Himself without losing first, and that a loss voids a win (p. 4). You lose the game if a second player reaches the 10th space on the temptation track, or if you are facing Nick Hauss or the Devil Himself and cannot pay the required number of souls (p. 4, 10).

(Note: Complete overarching victory conditions and final scoring details beyond defeating the final boss are not fully detailed in the provided rule excerpts.)