Yahtzee Rules and Score Sheet

Yahtzee takes about two minutes to learn and a long time to play well. Five dice, thirteen boxes to fill, thirteen turns to fill them. The rules below are the standard ones, the same rules used at the tables on this site.

What you need

Five six-sided dice, a cup if you have one, and a score sheet per player. Playing online, all of that is handled for you: the sheet fills itself in and the arithmetic is done as you go.

Two to ten players is the usual range, though Yahtzee works perfectly well alone. Solo play is how most people learn, and how serious players compare scores.

How a turn works

You roll all five dice. You may then set aside any dice you want to keep and reroll the rest. You can do that twice, so three rolls in total.

Nothing forces you to reroll. If the first roll gives you what you want, stop there. And a die you set aside is not locked: on your third roll you can pick it back up and throw it again.

At the end of the turn you must write a score in one of the thirteen boxes. Any box, in any order, but each box is used once and once only.

That last rule is the whole game. Some turns you will have to write a zero somewhere, and choosing where is what separates a good player from a lucky one.

The upper section

Six boxes, one per face. Each scores the total of the matching dice and ignores everything else.

Aces counts the ones. Three ones score 3.

Twos counts the twos. Three twos score 6.

Threes, Fours, Fives and Sixes work the same way. Four fives score 20.

The 63-point bonus

If your six upper boxes add up to 63 or more, you get an extra 35 points.

Sixty-three is not an arbitrary number. It is exactly three of a kind in every box: three aces, three twos, three threes, and so on up to three sixes. The bonus rewards you for averaging three dice per face.

You can miss on one face and make it up elsewhere. Four sixes instead of three gives you six points of slack, enough to cover a box where you only managed two. Keeping track of that running balance matters more than most beginners realise, and the strategy page goes into it.

The lower section

Seven boxes, each with its own condition.

Three of a kind. Three dice showing the same face. Scores the total of all five dice, not just the three that match, so 6-6-6-5-4 scores 27.

Four of a kind. Four dice the same. Again the total of all five: 5-5-5-5-2 scores 22.

Full house. Three of one face and two of another. Always 25 points, whatever the dice are. A full house of ones is worth exactly as much as a full house of sixes.

Small straight. Four consecutive faces, so 1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-5 or 3-4-5-6. The fifth die can be anything. Always 30 points.

Large straight. Five consecutive faces, so 1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6. Always 40 points.

Yahtzee. All five dice showing the same face. 50 points, the biggest single score on the sheet.

Chance. No condition at all. Scores the total of the five dice, whatever they are. This is the box that rescues a bad turn, which is why you should think twice before spending it early.

Rolling a second Yahtzee

If you have already scored 50 in the Yahtzee box and you roll another one, you get a 100-point bonus on top. There is no limit: every extra Yahtzee is another 100.

You then still have to write the roll somewhere, and the joker rules decide where.

Fill the matching upper box if it is free. Five fours go in Fours for 20 points. If that box is taken, you may use any lower box, and there the Yahtzee acts as a joker: a full house even though all five dice match, worth its usual 25, or a large straight for 40. If the whole lower section is full, you write a zero in a free upper box.

One thing to watch. If you had already written a zero in the Yahtzee box earlier in the game, a later Yahtzee earns you no bonus. The 100 points only exist if that box holds 50.

Ending the game

The game ends when every player has filled all thirteen boxes. Add the upper section, add the bonus if you earned it, add the lower section, add any Yahtzee bonuses. Highest total wins.

For reference, a first game usually lands between 150 and 200. Regular players sit around 230 to 250. The theoretical maximum, with thirteen Yahtzees in a row, is 1575, and nobody has ever needed to worry about reaching it.

Variants you will meet online

Yahtzee 6 adds a sixth die. You still keep five, but the extra die gives every combination a second chance, and scores climb accordingly.

Duplicate deals the same rolls to every player at the table. Since everyone gets identical dice, luck cancels out and the winner is whoever made the better choices. It is the format serious players prefer.

Yatzy, the Scandinavian version, changes some scores and adds boxes for one pair and two pairs. If you sit down at a table and the sheet looks unfamiliar, that is probably why.

Once the rules are clear, the interesting question is which box to aim for and when to give up on a turn. That is the strategy and odds page.