A printable Cockroach Poker pass-and-claim log lives or dies on the one card nobody can prove anyone passed, because the whole game runs on one record nobody keeps: who claimed what, who peeked, and who ended up with the card face up in front of them. The game ended with Ben holding four rats, and by the time the table argues about it nobody agrees on whether Ben's fourth rat really came from Dan's round-thirteen pass or from an earlier round everyone misremembers, whether Carla's round-two pass changed the claim or kept it, or whether Dan was one rat away from losing himself. A log sheet that records each pass's passer, receiver, claim, peek-or-accept decision, true-or-false call, actual card, and the player who kept the card face up is the only record that settles those arguments, and it is a record no one at the table is keeping, because the cards slide face down from hand to hand and the claims vanish the moment the card is revealed, and the players are too busy accusing each other of lying to write anything down.
Cockroach Poker, for the seller who has never played it: a bluffing card game for three to six players, from Drei Magier Spiele, played with a deck of 64 cards, eight copies of each of eight creature types: cockroach, bat, fly, toad, rat, scorpion, spider, and stink bug. All cards are dealt out evenly. On a turn a player takes one card from their hand, slides it face down to another player, and claims a creature type, truthfully or not. The receiver either accepts the card and says whether the claim is true or false, then reveals it, or peeks at the card and passes it face down to a player who has not seen it yet, keeping the old claim or making a new one. If the accepter's call is right, the passer takes the card face up in front of themselves; if the call is wrong, the accepter keeps it face up in front of themselves. The player who keeps the card starts the next round. The game ends when a player has four cards of the same type face up in front of them, or when a player has no card left to pass on their turn; that player loses and everyone else wins.
The worked game on the log sheet ran five players, Ana, Ben, Carla, Dan, and Eli, through thirteen passes, and every round's argument traces back to one line of the log. In round one Ana passed a rat to Ben claiming rat, Ben accepted and said true, and the card was a rat, so Ben was right and Ana kept the rat face up: Ana 1 rat. In round two Ana passed a spider to Carla claiming cockroach, Carla peeked and passed it to Dan still claiming cockroach, Dan accepted and said false, and the card was a spider, so Dan was right and Carla kept the spider face up: Carla 1 spider. In round three Carla passed a bat to Eli claiming bat, Eli accepted and said false, and the card was a bat, so Eli was wrong and kept the bat face up: Eli 1 bat. In round four Eli passed a rat to Ana claiming rat, Ana peeked and passed it to Ben claiming stink bug, Ben accepted and said true, and the card was a rat, so Ben was wrong and kept the rat face up: Ben 1 rat. In round five Ben passed a rat to Dan claiming rat, Dan accepted and said false, and the card was a rat, so Dan was wrong and kept the rat face up: Dan 1 rat. In round six Dan passed a cockroach to Carla claiming cockroach, Carla accepted and said true, and the card was a cockroach, so Carla was right and Dan kept the cockroach face up: Dan 1 rat, 1 cockroach. In round seven Dan passed a rat to Ana claiming rat, Ana accepted and said false, and the card was a rat, so Ana was wrong and kept the rat face up: Ana 2 rats. In round eight Ana passed a rat to Carla claiming fly, Carla peeked and passed it to Eli still claiming fly, Eli peeked and passed it to Ben claiming rat, Ben accepted and said false, and the card was a rat, so Ben was wrong and kept the rat face up: Ben 2 rats. In round nine Ben passed a rat to Eli claiming rat, Eli accepted and said true, and the card was a rat, so Eli was right and Ben kept the rat face up: Ben 3 rats. In round ten Ben passed a cockroach to Dan claiming cockroach, Dan peeked and passed it to Ana claiming scorpion, Ana accepted and said false, and the card was a cockroach, so Ana was right and Dan kept the cockroach face up: Dan 1 rat, 2 cockroaches. In round eleven Dan passed a rat to Carla claiming stink bug, Carla accepted and said false, and the card was a rat, so Carla was right and Dan kept the rat face up: Dan 2 rats, 2 cockroaches. In round twelve Dan passed a rat to Ana claiming rat, Ana accepted and said true, and the card was a rat, so Ana was right and Dan kept the rat face up: Dan 3 rats, 2 cockroaches, one rat away from losing himself. Round thirteen is the round the log exists for: Dan passed a rat to Ben claiming rat, Ben accepted and said false, and the card was a rat, so Ben was wrong and kept the rat face up, his fourth rat, and Ben lost while everyone else won.
The final totals are where the table's memory fails and the log does not. Ben finished with 4 rats and lost. Dan finished with 3 rats and 2 cockroaches, one rat short of the same fate. Ana finished with 2 rats, Carla with 1 spider, and Eli with 1 bat. Without the log, the table remembers the finish as Ben somehow collecting rats all night; with the log, it is Dan's round-thirteen truthful rat, Ben's wrong false call, and the three rats Ben had already kept in rounds four, eight, and nine that add up to exactly four, and the one-rat margin between Ben's loss and Dan's survival is exactly the size of one disputed call.
That is the sheet to sell: one page per game with a row per pass, each row holding the passer, the receiver, the claim, whether the receiver peeked or accepted, the true-or-false call, the actual card, and the player who kept the card face up, plus a running face-up tally per player per creature at the end of each row, because the tally is what tells the table who is one card from losing before the next pass is even made. Print the eight creature names as a checklist on every row so a claim is circled rather than written out, leave the peek chain visible so a card that travelled through three hands is not mistaken for a single pass, and add a small "four of a kind loses" reminder at the top, because the most argued-over part of the game is not who bluffed best but who is actually holding the fourth matching card. A buyer who runs a weekly game night does not need another card game; they need the record that ends the argument about the last one, and a thirteen-pass log that fits the game's own structure is a download they reach for every single week.
Unofficial fan-made log sheet. Cockroach Poker is a game by Jacques Zeimet, published by Drei Magier Spiele; this log is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher.
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