Robert Barrueco grew up like many Cuban children -- sitting around a table with family, intent on trying to outsmart one another as they played the game.

They'd calculate the numbers and try to make the best move. Or, in this case, the best call.

It wasn't dominoes that intrigued the Barrueco family but, rather, an old Cuban dice game called Mentirosa, which means deceitful woman.

But the game, which has long been played with pieces of piping, a handful of poker dice and a bag of chips, never gained popularity like dominoes.

Barrueco, 30, hopes to change that.

''I am going to take it upon myself to teach the world this game,'' said Barrueco, a Miami native who lives in Doral.

A website developer for Amadeus Global Travel Distribution in Doral, Barrueco spent two years developing a high-class version of the game to replace the homemade materials that longtime players have grown accustomed to using.

In May, Barrueco debuted his product at the Cuba Nostalgia exhibition in Miami -- a fancy Cedar cigar box containing six black leather bottomless tubes, six sets of Spanish poker dice and a red felt bag filled with red poker chips. He sold 200 sets and estimates he taught about 1,000 people how to play Mentirosa.

The game is also sold in a few Little Havana stores, as well as online at www.mentirosa.org.

Though business has been good, Barrueco hopes that Mentirosa, which he has trademarked, will one day make it onto shelves in big retailers like Macy's and Nordstrom. If that happens, he is certain the $74.99 game will be a hit. ''This is a screaming, pointing, laughing game,'' he said. ``I've never met a person who played it and said they didn't like it.''

Alejandro Acosta, a 29-year-old Miami window distributor, said he became hooked on Mentirosa the first time he played it eight years ago.

The game, he said, is more fun than poker and more challenging than dominoes. And, best of all, there is no limit to the number of players.

At least once a week, Acosta and his friends get together for dinner, drinks and some Mentirosa playing. ''We sit around the dining table and everyone can play together,'' he said. ``It's fun.''

Until recently, Acosta and his friends would play the game using PVC pipes or rolled up paper for the tubes. Barrueco's product has brought more style to the game, Acosta said.

''The fact that someone has gone out and marketed it is a plus,'' Acosta said. ``It is really nice to play that version.''

Recently, Barrueco hosted the Dewar's 12 Mentirosa Championship 2005, where more than 30 players went head-to-head in the first citywide tournament. Though competition went on for more than three hours, no winner emerged. The championship game is scheduled to continue Wednesday at Chispa Restaurant, 225 Altara Ave. in Coral Gables.

The point of the game is for players to mislead and outsmart their opponents.

Though strategies differ among players, the rules pretty much stay the same. Each player gets a tube and a set of five dice, with each die having six sides that represent the ace, king, queen, jack, eight and seven -- called faces. Each player tosses the five dice into his or her tube, hiding them from other players. The faces showing represent the player's hand.

The object of the game is to guess how many there are of any one face, among all the players combined, without going over. The first player begins the game by making a call, such as three kings, which means that player is guessing that there are at least three kings among all the dice in the game. The next player can either raise the call or call a bluff by lifting his tube.

If a bluff is called correctly, the bluffer is out. If a player is not bluffing and is called on it, the person calling the bluff is out. Once a player receives five chips, he or she exits the game.

The game continues until only one player remains.

To make the game more exciting, Barrueco suggests a wager be made, whether it be money, drinks or something else.

It was during the 2001 Labor Day weekend, while visiting friends in Sanibel, that Barrueco first realized he wanted to create his version of the game. He pulled out something he had been carrying since he was 15: a bag filled with pieces of piping and cheap dice.

He introduced the game to his friends, who are not Hispanic and had never heard of Mentirosa. Their reaction stunned him.

''They loved it,'' Barrueco recalled. ``We played the entire weekend.''

Barrueco, an entrepreneur at heart who will soon receive a master's degree in business administration from Florida International University, immediately saw a business opportunity.

Using $50,000 he had saved, Barrueco started Yuca Productions and got to work creating his dream product: a classier version of Mentirosa.

The game is starting to catch on and people around the country have purchased it online, Barrueco said.

He hopes Mentirosa will become as popular as the latest poker phenomenon ''Texas Hold `Em.'' If that happens, he said, the rest of the world can experience a big part of his Cuban heritage.

''This is a tradition that has kind of disappeared,'' Barrueco said. ``I'm trying to bring it back and make it something tangible that people can recognize.''