How do I play Yahtzee

Liz Canning

 

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Rules of the game

The object of Yahtzee is to obtain the highest score from throwing 5 dice.
The game consists of 13 rounds. In each round, you roll the dice and then score the roll in one of 13 categories. You must score once in each category. The score is determined by a different rule for each category.The game ends once all 13 categories have been scored.

How do you play

To start with, roll all the dice. After rolling you can either score the current roll, or re-roll any or all of the dice.

You may only roll the dice a total of 3 times. After rolling 3 times you must choose a category to score.

You may score the dice at any point in the round, (it doesn't have to be after the 3rd roll).

Scoring

To score your combination of 5 dice, you write it on the scoresheet. There are two sections to the score table - the Upper Section and the Lower Section.

Once a box has been scored, it cannot be scored again for the rest of the game (except the Yahtzee category), so choose carefully.

Upper Section Scoring

If you score in the upper section of the table, your score is the total of the specified die face.
So if you roll:
5 - 2 - 5 - 6 - 5 and score in the Fives category, your total for the category would be 15, because there are three fives, which are added together.
If the one, three or four Categories were selected for scoring with this roll, you would score a zero.
If placed in the two or six category, you would score 2 and 6.

Bonus- If the total of Upper scores is 63 or more, add a bonus of 35.(63 is the total of three each of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 6s).

Lower Section Scoring

In the lower scores, you score either a set amount, or zero if you don't get the category requirements.

3 and 4 of a kind For 3 of a kind you must have at least 3 of the same die faces. You score the total of all the dice. For 4 of a kind you would need 4 die faces the same.

Small and Large Straight A Straight is a sequence of consecutive die faces, where a small straight is 4 consecutive faces, and a large straight 5 consecutive faces.
Small straights score 30 and a large 40 points.
So if you rolled:
2 - 3 - 2 - 5 - 4
you could score 30 in small straight or 0 in large straight.

Full House A Full House is where you have 3 of a kind and 2 of a kind. Full houses score 25 points.
So if you rolled:
3 - 3 - 2 - 3 - 2
you would score 25 in the Full House category.

Yahtzee A Yahtzee is 5 of a kind and scores 50 points, although you can choose NOT to score it as a yahtzee, instead choosing to take it as a top row score and make sure you get your bonus.

If you roll a second Yahtzee in a game, and you scored your first yahtzee in the Yahtzee box, you would score a further bonus 100 points in the yahtzee box. You must also put this roll into another category, for example;

-If the corresponding Upper section category is not filled then you must score there.
ie if you rolled 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 and the Fours Category is not filled, you must put the score in the Fours category.

-If the corresponding Upper section category is filled you may then put the score anywhere on the Upper Section (scoring zero). In 3 of a Kind, 4 of a Kind, and Chance categories you would score the total of the die faces. For the Small Straight, Large Straight, and Full House categories, you would score 30, 40 and 25 points respectively.

Chance You can roll anything and be able to put it in the Chance category. You score the total of the die faces.