Yahtzee
Yahtzee, sometimes spelled Yatzee without the "h", is certainly one of the most famous dice games. It is played with 5 dice and the goal is to make as many points as possible by judiciously filling your score sheet.
Game rules
Players play in turn each after the other. On your turn, after rolling the 5 dice for the first time, you can decide to roll one, more or even all of your dice again to improve your hand. When you are satisfied, or when you have exhausted the three rolls you are allowed, you must choose a row on your score sheet to put your points in.
The points you get depend on the combination you managed to obtain with your dice, and the row you chose. In general, you get 0 points if you didn't succeed in making the required combination for your selected row. Sometimes, you are obliged to select a row knowing that you will mark 0 because you have no other choice, or simply because some of the combinations are very difficult to have and you wish to protect some other rows. It's especially common with the Yahtzee category. Each row is only used once, you aren't allowed to come back to an already marked row. A game is therefore composed of exactly 13 turns, after which the 13 rows of the sheet are full.
Score sheet and combinations
Your score sheet is composed of two main parts:
- The upper part contains the rows "Group 1 " to "Group 6". In these six rows, only the dice showing the corresponding group number are counted. For example, the hand 2 4 4 4 6 gives 12 points if it is scored on group 4 because there are 3 dice showing the value 4, giving 4 points each. If it is scored on group 2, it gives only 2 points because there is only a single die showing the value 2, and on group 1 it would be worth 0 points because there isn't any die showing number 1.
- The lower part contains different combinations mostly inspired by poker that you must achieve in order to effectively score points:
- Three of a kind: you obtain the sum of your 5 dice if at least three are identical. For example the hand 1 3 3 3 4 would count for 14 points.
- Four of a kind: with the same principle as above, you obtain the sum of your 5 dice if at least 4 are identical.
- Full, shortened for full house: at least 25 points are given for a combination containing three identical dice plus two identical dice of another value. For example 1 1 1 5 5. You can get more than 25 points by doing something like 6 6 6 5 5, but you will always at least get 25 points, even for 1 1 1 2 2, as long as you succeeded in making the combination correctly.
- Yahtzee: a reward of 50 points is given if you succeed in obtaining 5 identical dice. Note that it is usually hard to get it, and, subsequently, this row is often sacrificed.
- Small straight: a straight of 4 consecutive dice gives 30 points. There are only 3 possible small straights: 1 2 3 4, 2 3 4 5 and 3 4 5 6.
- Large straight: a straight of 5 consecutive dice gives 40 points. Only two large straights exist: 1 2 3 4 5 and 2 3 4 5 6. Be careful, it isn't as easy to do as it looks like.
- Chance: the sum of your 5 dice are counted without any restriction. This row is especially useful to score an unsatisfactory hand which wouldn't fit in another place.
A bonus of 35 points is given if the total score obtained in the upper part of the sheet (Groups 1 to 6) is greater than or equal to 63 points. These 63 points correspond to 3+6+9+12+15+18, which is equivalent to saying that to get the bonus, you must have gotten at least three dice of the correct value for each of the groups. An interesting strategy is to try to sacrifice or compensate weaker scores in smaller groups (1 or 2), which anyway never give many points, for better success in greater groups (4, 5 and 6).
Variants
Additional rows in score sheets
This variant adds three rows to the score sheets, making a game last a total of 16 turns instead of 13:
- Pair: the sum of the 5 dice is counted as soon as there are two identical numbers.
- Double pair: the sum of the 5 dice is given if there are two groups of two identical dice. For example 1 3 3 5 5 would give 17 points.
- Misery: Misery gives 36 points minus the sum of the 5 dice without any condition. You can see it as being the opposite of the chance, because the higher value the dice are, the less points it can give. Note that you can count a maximum of 31 points for misery, but only 30 for chance.
Keyboard shortcuts summary
- Enter: Roll dice or mark the score
- 1 to 6: Select dice to roll again
- Shift + 1 to 6: Unselect dice to roll again
- Space: Repeat dice currently selected
- D: Repeat latest roll obtained
- S: Announce scores
- Shift+S: See detailed score sheets
- T: Announce who is playing