Farkle rules

Setup

Farkle needs nothing but six dice and a score line per player. Both players start at zero and take alternating turns; on each turn you roll all six dice and build up turn points that only become real when you bank them. There is no opening threshold in our rules — your very first banked 50 counts.

The whole game lives in the gap between turn points and banked points. Turn points sit on the table, growing with every scoring keep and exposed to every reroll; banked points are untouchable — nothing in Farkle ever takes away a point you have banked. Understanding that one distinction is understanding the game.

How a turn works

1. Roll all of your available dice — six at the start of a turn.
2. Check for a farkle. If the roll contains nothing scorable at all, you have farkled: every unbanked point from this turn is lost and the dice pass to your opponent.
3. Set aside a scoring selection. You must set aside at least one scoring die from every roll, and every die you select has to contribute to the score — you cannot slip a dead die into the pile. You choose exactly which dice to keep; keeping every scorer is not required.
4. Push or bank. Either roll the remaining dice and repeat, or bank your turn points onto your score and end the turn. You may bank after any keep — but never before you have kept at least one selection this turn.

Hot dice: if all six dice end up set aside as scorers, you may pick up all six and keep rolling with your turn points intact. There is no limit to hot-dice chains — they are how monster turns happen, and how they die.

The risk curve is steep: six fresh dice farkle only about 2% of the time, but two dice farkle around 44% and a single die farkles two rolls in three — with few dice, only 1s and 5s can save you.

Scoring — the complete chart

A selection is scored as a whole when you set it aside. Singles and triples combine freely in one selection (1-1-5 scores 250); the six-dice combinations — three pairs and the run — must be selected all at once.

Note the flat values: four, five and six of a kind pay 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000 regardless of face — four 2s and four 6s are worth the same. Dice showing 2, 3, 4 or 6 score nothing on their own; they only count inside a triple-or-better, three pairs or the run.

A worked example: you roll 3-3-3-1-5-2. The triple 3s are worth 300, the 1 is 100 and the 5 is 50. Keeping all five scorers adds 450 to your turn points but leaves one die — a two-in-three farkle if you roll on. Keeping just the triple and the 1 (400) leaves two dice; keeping only the triple (300) leaves three. How much you keep is exactly how much risk you buy.

Winning the game

The first player to bank a total of 10,000 or more points wins immediately. Points must be banked to count — sitting on 9,900 banked with 500 on the table wins nothing until you bank, and a farkle there still leaves you at 9,900. In our rules there is no final-rebuttal turn for the opponent and no requirement to land on exactly 10,000: banking past the line ends the game on the spot.

The immediate win reshapes the endgame. Trailing near the finish, you must push — banking short of 10,000 may simply hand the opponent the winning bank. Leading, the calculus flips: with 9,700 banked, any 300-point turn is the game, so take the safe triple and stop rolling.

Edge cases & fine print

The precise rulings our engine applies, including the ones that surprise experienced players:

• Four of a kind plus a pair is three pairs — 1,500. The cardgames.io ruling we follow: 2-2-2-2-3-3 selected together scores 1,500, more than the 1,000 the quad alone is worth. This also rescues combinations like 1-1-1-1-5-5, where three pairs (1,500) beats the quad-plus-two-fives reading (1,100) — the engine automatically awards the higher three-pairs value.
• Four 1s kept together are only 1,000. Flat four-of-a-kind value applies to aces too, so the fourth 1 adds nothing to a quad selection. Keeping three 1s (1,000) and rerolling the spare — or pairing the quad with a pair for 1,500 — is strictly better.
• Grouping is per keep, and you keep once per roll. Each roll allows exactly one selection, scored as a unit. Three 1s kept now and a fourth 1 kept from a later roll score 1,000 + 100; the engine never merges dice across keeps into a bigger combination.
• Six-dice combos need all six selected. The run of six and three pairs only exist as full six-die selections. Two triples in one roll are not a special combo — they score as two separate triples (three 6s + three 5s = 1,100).
• A selection with any dead die is illegal. Keeping 1-5-3 is rejected outright — remove the 3 or the keep does not happen. Only fully-scoring selections leave the table.
• You cannot bank on zero. Banking requires at least one kept selection this turn, so there is no passing a turn to play safe — every turn faces at least one roll.
• A farkle only checks the fresh roll. Dice already set aside are safe from everything except the farkle wiping the turn total; the farkle test asks only whether the dice you just rolled contain a scorer.

Variants and house rules

Farkle is a folk dice game with wildly varying tables. We play the cardgames.io values above; the common house rules differ like this:

• Opening threshold — many tables require 500 or 1,000 in one turn before your first bank counts. We have no minimum.
• Three-farkle penalty — some play −1,000 for three farkles in a row. We deduct nothing; a farkle only costs the turn.
• Progressive kinds — a popular chart doubles the triple for each extra die (four 2s = 400). Ours pays flat 1,000/2,000/3,000 for four/five/six of a kind, any face.
• Different combo values — straights range from 1,000 to 3,000 and three pairs from 500 to 1,500 across house charts; some score two triples as 2,500. Ours: run 2,500, three pairs 1,500, two triples just add up.
• Final rebuttal — many tables give everyone one last turn after someone crosses 10,000. Here the first player to bank 10,000+ wins immediately.
• Toxic twos — a niche rule where four 2s wipe the turn. Not a thing in our game; 2s are simply worthless outside combinations.

Frequently asked questions

Related rulebooks

• Yahtzee rules — roll dice and chase the top score
• Crazy Eights rules — match suit or rank — 8s are wild
• Gin Rummy rules — meld, knock and go gin — first to 100