Yahtzee Rules: How to Play and Score Every Box

Yahtzee is the classic dice game of luck and smart choices: five dice, three rolls and thirteen boxes to fill. It was developed in the 1950s from a game a Canadian couple played on their yacht, and it has been published by Milton Bradley and later Hasbro ever since. In Germany the same game is called Kniffel, and in France Yams.

You can play alone and try to beat your high score, or with as many players as you have score sheets.

The goal

Score as many points as possible by rolling dice combinations and writing them into the 13 boxes of your scorecard. After 13 rounds, the player with the highest total wins.

What you need

• 5 standard six-sided dice and a cup
• A score sheet for each player (or draw your own with the 13 boxes below)
• A pen

How a turn works

1. Roll all five dice.
2. Keep any dice you want and re-roll the others. You can re-roll the same dice again or dice you kept before.
3. Do this up to three rolls in total. You can stop early.
4. Score: choose one empty box on your scorecard and write the score for your final dice there.

Every turn you must fill exactly one box. If your dice don't fit any open box, you must write 0 in one of them (this is called "scratching" a box).

Play passes to the left. Each player gets 13 turns, one for every box.

The scorecard

Upper section

Example: rolling 4-4-4-2-6 and scoring it as Fours gives 12 points.

The magic number is 63: three of each number (3 + 6 + 9 + 12 + 15 + 18). If you score fewer 1s or 2s, you can make up for it with four 5s or 6s.

Lower section

The possible small straights are 1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-5 and 3-4-5-6. The large straights are 1-2-3-4-5 and 2-3-4-5-6.

Yahtzee bonus and Joker rules

Rolling more than one Yahtzee in a game is rare but exciting, and the official rules reward it:

1. Yahtzee bonus: if you have already scored 50 in the Yahtzee box, each extra Yahtzee earns a 100-point bonus. If you scored 0 in the Yahtzee box, you get no bonus.
2. You still have to fill a box with the extra Yahtzee, following the Joker rules:
   • If the matching upper box is empty (for example Fives for five 5s), you must score it there.
   • If that upper box is already filled, you may score the Yahtzee in any open lower box. Full house, small straight and large straight count their full 25, 30 or 40 points.
   • If all lower boxes are filled too, you must write 0 in an open upper box.

Final score

Add up:

1. the upper section total,
2. the 35-point bonus if you reached 63,
3. the lower section total,
4. any Yahtzee bonuses.

The highest grand total wins.

Strategy tips

• Aim for the bonus early. Three or more of a number in the upper section keeps you on track for 63. Four 6s on Sixes (24 points) gives you room to be weaker elsewhere.
• Use Chance as a safety net. It's the best place for a bad roll with a high total, but don't waste it early.
• Chase Yahtzees with three of a kind. If you have three or four matching dice after your first roll, re-roll the others. You're also building towards Four of a kind and a full house.
• Know when to go for straights. With 2-3-4-5 after two rolls, take the small straight if the large one isn't needed; a 3-4-5 with two rolls left has good chances for either.
• Scratch wisely. If you must score 0, the Ones box or the Yahtzee box late in the game usually costs you the least.
• Keep track of what's left. In the last few rounds, plan your rolls around the boxes you still need.

Common mistakes

• Rolling a fourth time. Three rolls is the maximum.
• Not filling a box at the end of the turn.
• Scoring a full house with five of a kind without checking the Joker rules.
• Forgetting the 35-point bonus or the Yahtzee bonuses when adding up.
• Counting only the matching dice for Three or Four of a kind. These boxes score the total of all five dice.

Yahtzee, Kniffel, Yams and Generala

The game is played around the world under different names. Kniffel (Germany) and Yams (France) use almost the same scorecard. In Kniffel, an extra Kniffel usually earns 50 bonus points instead of 100. Yams players often add extra columns that must be filled in order, top-down or bottom-up. In Latin America, Generala is a related game with fixed scores and an instant win for a "generala servida" (five of a kind on the first roll). Yahtzee is a trademark of Hasbro; Rulanza is independent and not affiliated with Hasbro.