Yahtzee

Yahtzee (1956) is a push-your-luck game where you try to score the most points. You play by rolling and then re-rolling select dice to make your target more likely. It is a classic case of push your luck, where sometimes the dice fall in your favour and other times you can’t seem to roll anything that you need.

---

You play by rolling dice, with the aim of crossing off a variety of different Poker-style point-scoring sequences. Each go, you can roll the five dice a maximum of three times. You must enter a score into one of the boxes on your scoresheet. So, as you play, you have to decide which dice to re-roll and which to keep towards the sequence you are going for. The more difficult a sequence is to roll, then the more points it is worth. For example, five of a kind scores you fifty points and is called a “Yahtzee”.

As you progress, you fill up your scoresheet, which limits the number of sequences that you have available to you. This pushes you to take ever greater risks in search of points. As you can only score each sequence once, if you fail to complete the one you are rolling for, then you need to enter a zero in the box and score no points for that turn. There are a few extra bonuses that you can aim for and the winner is the player with the most points after all players have attempted to complete all the boxes on their sheet.

This is a classic dice game, for which everyone has a favourite order to go after the points boxes and the way they conjure lady luck to help them in their quest. Expect to hear the phrase “The dice just don’t like me today” at least once a game.

---

Our examiner, Rob Prior, first checked Yahtzee 20 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 9 months ago.