Yahtzee / Yams

01Discover the game

Yahtzee is a five dice game where each throw has to find its place in a score sheet. You can keep some dice and restart others, but you have to choose a single category in each turn. The real challenge is not only to get a nice result: you also have to decide which box to preserve for later and which box to sacrifice when the throw is wrong.

We follow the classic Yahtzee of Milton Bradley/Hasbro E0950 ©1996 in eight pages and the official clarification Hasbro of 2023 for the additional Yahtzee and the joker rule. The Yams name sometimes covers other leaves and other bonuses: we do not apply these variants here. The overall difficulty is Medium, for estimating the probability and managing the thirteen boxes, with a high share of chance. We play alone or several; about 20 to 40 minutes for a small group is one Practical estimate.

02Equipment

It takes exactly five ordinary six-sided dice, a cup, a score sheet of thirteen categories per player and a pencil. The classic booklet also presents ten bonus chips to materialize the additional Yahtzee; a written trace fulfils the same function if these chips are not available.

The sheet has six upper boxes, for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, then seven lower boxes: brelan, square, full, small suite, large suite, Yahtzee and luck. Subtotal and bonus lines are used for calculation; they do not constitute additional rounds.

03The goal

Get the largest total after completing your thirteen categories. So you play exactly thirteen laps, even if you get multiple Yahtzee. A bonus does not allow you to leave an empty category or replay for free.

A roll can fit several categories, but you fill in only one. With 4, 4, 4, 2 and 2, you can score the 4s, the 2s, three of a kind, full house or chance, for different points. Once you fill a box, you cannot change it.

04Prepare the sheet

Give each one a sheet. Check together the thirteen boxes and three numbers to remember: 63 to trigger the top bonus, 35 to this bonus and 50 to a first Yahtzee. Place bonus chips within the table if your box provides them.

In the classic booklet chosen, each casts the five dice to determine the first player to the greatest total; restart between ex æquo if necessary, practical procedure announced here. Then play left. Solo, starts directly with a blank sheet and seeks to exceed a previous personal result.

05One round, categories and special cases

Up to three throws

At the beginning of your turn, throw the five dice. You can stop immediately or keep some dice and restart the others. You have a maximum of three dice in total, not three dice after the first one. When you reboot, you can resume a dice that you had previously kept: this choice is not definitive.

When you stop, enter a score or zero in an empty category. You can't pass by keeping the sheet unchanged. A selected box is consumed even if it receives zero. The dice are then taken back for the next player's turn.

The top six boxes

Each box adds only the dice of its number. With 2, 2, 2, 5 and 6, the box of the 2 is six, the box of the 5 is five and the box of the 6 is six. The other dice do not add to this category.

When the top six cells are filled, their sum gives a bonus of 35 if it reaches at least 63. Exactly three of each number would give 3 + 6 + 9 + 12 + 15 + 18 = 63, but one box can compensate for a weakness with a good result in another. The bottom scores do not contribute to this threshold.

The seven bottom boxes

The brelan requires at least three identical dice and marks the sum of the five dice. square requires at least four identical dice and also marks the sum of the five. It is not only the identical dice that count.

The full requires three dice of one number and two dice of another and is worth 25 points. Apart from the special rule of the joker, five identical dice do not constitute this full of two different numbers.

The small suite requires four consecutive values among the five dice and is worth 30 points. 1–2–3–4–4 fits; the fifth dice does not need to be different. great sequel requires five consecutive values, i.e. 1–2–3–4–5 or 2–3–4–5–6, and is equal to 40.

The Yahtzee brings together five identical dice and is worth 50 in its box. Good luck accepts any result and is worth the sum of the five dice. A category whose requirement is not fulfilled can be sacrificed by writing zero, if it was still empty.

One additional Yahtzee

If your Yahtzee box already contains 50, each new final throw of five identical dice on another round will earn 100 bonus points. Note the bonus or take a reminder token. You still have to fill in another of the thirteen boxes that turn.

If the Yahtzee box contains zero, you don't get the 100 bonus. However, the official FAQ chosen still applies the joker rule to record this new result elsewhere. A zero in Yahtzee does not block all the particular consequences of five identical dice.

The forced joker, in the right order

When you get five identical dice while your Yahtzee box is already filled, first look at the corresponding top box. If it is empty, you have to enter the sum of the five dice. Five 4 go to the 4 for twenty points.

If this top box is already filled, select an empty bottom box. Brelan, square and luck are worth the sum of the five dice. The joker then allows to mark the fixed values of the full, small suite or large suite, even if the five identical dice do not normally have the form: 25, 30 or 40 respectively.

If the corresponding top box and all the lower boxes are already filled in, write zero in another empty top box. You do not change any old box. This procedure is that of the classic booklet and its FAQ; some more recent sheets formulate otherwise the order of the categories, hence the importance of keeping this edition as a reference.

06Two example tricks

Alice rolls 2, 2, 4, 5, 6. She keeps the two 2s and rerolls the other three dice. She gets another 2, a 5 and a 6. She could stop with three of a kind worth 2 + 2 + 2 + 5 + 6 = 17, or take her third roll. She keeps her three 2s and rolls 2 and 5 on the two other dice. The final roll, 2, 2, 2, 2, 5, scores thirteen for four of a kind, eight in 2s or thirteen in chance. She chooses eight in 2s to work toward the upper bonus.

Later, Alice gets five 6 while her Yahtzee box is already worth 50. She scores one hundred bonuses. If the 6 box is empty, she must enter thirty. If this box is already used and the large suite is still empty, she can write forty in the big suite thanks to the joker. It's not a second fill in the Yahtzee box and it's not a fourteenth round.

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07Add and Win

After each person's thirteenth turn, add the top six boxes and eventually add 35. Add the lower seven boxes and the additional one hundred Yahtzee bonuses. Then bring the two sections together.

Example: 66 across the six upper boxes gives 66 + 35 = 101. If the lower section totals 174 and a one-hundred-point Yahtzee bonus was recorded, the overall total is 101 + 174 + 100 = 375. Add the 35-point upper bonus only once, even for a very high upper total.

The biggest total wins. In case of equality, you can share the victory; this is our table convention, the chosen booklet does not fix here a detailed separation. In solo, compares sheets played with the same categories and the same treatment of bonuses; a sheet of Yams to other rules does not give a comparable result.

08Frequent errors

• Perform three re-launches after the first jet instead of three throws in total.
• Refusal to take over a previously held record: it is allowed.
• Count only the same dice for the brelan or square.
• Use the bottom dots to reach 63 at the top.
• Give 100 for an additional Yahtzee after blocking the Yahtzee box to zero.
• Forget to fill a box for a bonus round, or freely choose the joker while the corresponding top box is empty.

09Tips for starting

Look at your sheet before restarting. A small result can be useful in a still weak top box, while a chance filled too early removes a backup output. The suites and the full have fixed values; it is not necessary to search for large numbers for these categories.

Keep an idea of the path to 63. Three dice per number constitute a benchmark, not an absolute obligation. When a turn goes wrong, compare the boxes you can sacrifice rather than write zero without looking at the consequences on the end of your sheet.