Yahtzee rules

Setup

Each player has a score card with 13 boxes: the upper section (Ones through Sixes) and the lower section (3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, Full house, Small straight, Large straight, Yahtzee, Chance). A game is exactly 13 rounds per player — one box filled per round — and in our head-to-head version you and Emma alternate turns on separate columns of the same sheet.

There is no dealing and no hidden information: both score columns are visible throughout, so you always know exactly what you need to catch or protect a lead.

How a turn works

1. Roll all five dice. The first roll of a turn always throws everything.
2. Hold and reroll — up to twice. After the first and second rolls you may hold any dice and reroll the rest. Holds are completely flexible: you can release a held die or change your holds between rolls.
3. Score exactly one box. After your first, second or third roll — stopping early is allowed — you must write the current dice into one empty box on your card. Every box can be filled only once, and once 13 rounds are up the card is full.

If the dice fit nothing useful, you still must fill a box — writing a zero into a box you sacrifice. Choosing which box to zero is one of the biggest skill points in the game.

Scoring — the complete category table

The 63-point threshold for the upper bonus is exactly three dice of each face (3×1 + 3×2 + … + 3×6 = 63). Think of three-of-a-face as par: banking four Fives or Sixes early buys you room to come up short on Ones and Twos later. A box that misses — say two Fours in the Fours box — still scores what it shows (8); only the running total against 63 matters for the bonus.

Note that 3 and 4 of a kind score the sum of all five dice, not just the matching ones — a kicker of sixes is worth real points. Full house, the straights and Yahtzee are flat payouts, and Chance is the safety net that takes any roll at face value.

Extra Yahtzees: the complete joker rules

Rolling a second (or third…) Yahtzee after your Yahtzee box is already filled triggers the most misplayed rule in the game. Our engine enforces the official ruling in full:

1. The 100-point bonus pays only if your Yahtzee box holds 50. If you ever scored a zero in the Yahtzee box, later Yahtzees earn no bonus — though the joker placement rules below still apply.
2. The matching upper box is forced. If the upper box for the rolled face is open (five 4s → the Fours box), the roll must go there, scoring the normal way (five 4s = 20).
3. Otherwise the roll is a joker in any lower box — at full fixed value: Full house for 25, Small straight for 30 or Large straight for 40, even though the dice are not literally a house or a run. 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind and Chance score the sum of all five dice.
4. Only if every lower box is filled may the roll go into a different upper box, where it scores that box’s face count — which for a Yahtzee of another face means a zero.

Winning the game

When both players have filled all 13 boxes, each grand total is computed: upper section + 35 bonus (if 63+) + lower section + 100 per extra Yahtzee. The higher grand total wins the duel.

For calibration: the upper bonus path (63 + 35 = 98) plus solid lower boxes lands most disciplined games in the 200s. Totals over 300 are excellent and usually involve a Yahtzee.

In the head-to-head duel the visible score columns matter tactically: trailing late, gamble on straights and Yahtzees rather than banking safe mediocrity; leading, fill the risky boxes early while a zero is still affordable and make your opponent do the chasing.

Edge cases & fine print

• A large straight also fills Small straight for 30. Any five in a row contains four in a row — useful when the Large straight box is already gone.
• Full house is strictly 3 + 2. Five of a kind is not a full house (except via the joker rule), and four-and-one does not qualify.
• A Yahtzee counts as 3 and 4 of a kind. Five matching dice qualify for either kind box, scoring the sum of all five — a legal home for a Yahtzee when the box is filled and the joker forces a lower box.
• You may stop after any roll. Scoring after the first roll is legal and common when it hits — the three rolls are a maximum, not a duty.
• Holds reset every round. Dice carry no state between turns; every round starts with a fresh all-five roll, and you cannot hold dice before the first roll of a turn.
• The 35 bonus is all-or-nothing. 63 exactly earns it; 62 earns nothing. There is no partial credit, which is why protecting upper-section pace matters more than any single lower box.
• An extra Yahtzee scores twice, in effect. It earns the 100 bonus (if the Yahtzee box holds 50) and it fills whatever box the joker rules direct it to, at that box’s value.

Variants and house rules

Our game plays the official Hasbro ruleset, as cardgames.io does. Common variations you may know:

• Yatzy — the Scandinavian cousin adds boxes (One pair, Two pairs, sometimes Full straight), scores straights differently (15/20) and pays the bonus at 63 with only 50 points. The score cards are not interchangeable.
• Forced Yahtzee jokers as wild 50s — some house rules let a second Yahtzee score 50 in any box. Officially (and here) the joker fills a box at that box’s value plus the 100 bonus.
• Triple Yahtzee — a scorepad variant with three columns scored at 1×, 2× and 3×. Ours is the classic single-column game per player.
• No-bonus casual play — kitchen tables sometimes skip the upper bonus entirely. We always pay 35 at 63+.

Frequently asked questions

Related rulebooks

• Farkle rules — push your luck to 10,000 — or farkle
• Solitaire rules — the classic klondike patience game
• Hearts rules — avoid hearts and the queen of spades