Yatzy rules

Roll all five dice. Keep any of them and roll the rest again, up to two more times. You may stop after the first or second roll if you are happy. When you are done rolling, write the score for the dice as they lie into one open box on your sheet. If nothing fits, you must put a zero somewhere. The turn then passes to the next player.

Fifteen turns fill fifteen boxes. The player with the highest total wins. In a two-player game a good score is around 200; 250 or more is a strong game.

Ones to sixes score the sum of the matching dice. Three of each number gives exactly 63, and that is the bonus line: reach 63 or more across the six upper boxes and you get 50 extra points. The bonus is the single biggest swing on the sheet, so most strategy is about protecting it. Four sixes (24) buys you room to take only two fives (10) later.

One pair scores the higher pair you hold; two pairs needs two different pairs. Three and four of a kind score only the matching dice, not the whole hand. The straights are fixed: small straight is exactly 1-2-3-4-5 for 15, large straight exactly 2-3-4-5-6 for 20. A full house is three of one face and two of another. It scores the sum of all five dice. The best possible house, 6-6-6-5-5, is 28. Chance takes any dice for their sum. Yatzy, five of a kind, is 50.

The chance of rolling a Yatzy within one turn with the best possible keeps is 4.6 %; a large straight 19.7 %; a full house 36.3 %. Every figure on this site is computed by the game engine, not copied from a rulebook.

A perfect sheet is worth 374: 105 in the upper section, the 50 bonus, and 219 below. No one has recorded it in serious play, and no one ever will. It is still the number every score is measured against.

You roll 3-3-5-6-6. Two pairs is already worth 18, but the sixes matter more for the bonus, so you keep 6-6 and roll the other three.

Second roll: 6-2-4. Three sixes now. Keep them and roll the last two dice.

Third roll: 6-3. Four sixes. Sixes takes 24 and puts you 6 ahead of bonus pace. Four of a kind would also take 24, but the upper box is worth more in the long run because it protects the 50-point bonus.

Yatzy grew out of Yacht, a dice game recorded in the 1930s. Yahtzee, the North American version, was published in 1956. The Scandinavian sheet with pairs, fixed straights and a full house that scores the dice took shape in the 1950s and 1960s and is the version most Nordic families play today.