How to play Yahtzee

- How to play - Scoring - Tips - Troubleshooting -

How to play Yahtzee?

The basic idea of the game is that you have 5 dice.
You can see them in the left hand pane of the game window.

You roll them at most 3 times to achieve the best value possible on each turn.
To roll all the dice, press the "Roll" button once.

Prior to each subsequent roll you may choose to hold or release any combination of dice.
When pressing "Roll", only dice that are not locked will be rolled again.
You hold a dice by clicking it with the mouse. You release a dice by clicking it again.

Obviously, you will try to hold the dice that might lead to a high score, and you will release the dice that don't match your goal.
The challenging part of the game is for you to balance your chances in this choice.

After the third roll, you must score the set of dice in one of the scoring boxes by clicking it with the mouse (if your first or second throw is good enough, you can score it directly).

There are 39 different scoring boxes (on the right hand side of the window).
The game does not end until all 39 are filled.

Scoring

You can score in any of the scoring boxes that are still open.
The score is indicated as you move the mouse cursor over a box.
At the right, any rows that are not scoring for your throw are grayed out.
(However, sometimes you may have no other choice than to pick a zero score.)

Once you click in a box, your score is registered.

If you made a mistake, press the Undo button.

In the top section, you score according to the number of dices showing the number of 1's, 2's and so on.
In the bottom section, you score if your throw belongs to one of these special cases:

Name	Condition	Score
three of a kind	3 dice of the same kind	sum of all the dice
four of a kind	4 dice of the same kind	sum of all the dice
full house	2 of one kind, 3 of another	25 points
small straight	4 consecutive numbers	30 points
straight	5 consecutive numbers	40 points
Yahtzee	5 dice of the same kind	50 points
Chance	any combination	sum of all the dice

In the top section you get a bonus (35 points) in any of the 3 columns if your subtotal for that column is greater or equal to 63.

In the bottom section you get a Yahtzee Bonus (100 points) per EXTRA Yahtzee after you filled the 3 Yahtzee boxes.

The upper total and the bottom total together give the combined total.

This value is multiplied by 1 in the first column, by 2 in the second column, and by 3 in the third column to give the Triple Yahtzee Total.

Finally, the sum of this last total in the 3 columns will be your total score.

Some tips

Yahtzees score the best, so these should be your first goal.
the top section is best if you have 3 (or more) of a number. If you get exactly 3 of each number in a column, you reach the 63 points to get the top section bonus for that column.
if you don't have a very good throw, you might register it as a Chance, or choose Ones. That way, your loss is not so much.
by preference, big scores are put in the third column, because these points are tripled.
similarly, low scores better go in the first column.

Troubleshooting

When you play the game for the first time, response may be slow. This is because images and sounds take some time to load.
If nothing happens when you click the "Roll" or "New game" button, JavaScript is not enabled in your browser. To find out how to enable JavaScript in the most common browsers, look here.
If the game doesn't keep your score, probably cookies were disabled in your browser. To find out how to enable cookies, look here.

Comments

Any comments and bug reports may be sent to: info@rekenwonder.com.

- How to play - Scoring - Tips - Troubleshooting -