Object of the game

The object of Yahtzee is to obtain the highest score from throwing 5 dice.
The game consists of 13 rounds. In each round, you roll the dice and then score the roll in one of 13 categories. You must score once in each category. The score is determined by a different rule for each category.
The game ends once all 13 categories have been scored.

Game Start

• To start with, roll all the dice. After rolling you can either score the current roll (see below), or re-roll any or all of the dice.
• You may only roll the dice a total of 3 times. After rolling 3 times you must choose a category to score.
• You may score the dice at any point in the round, i.e. it doesn't have to be after the 3rd roll.

Scoring

To score your combination of 5 dice, you click one of the 13 boxes, or write it on the scorecard (scoresheet). There are two sections to the score table - the Upper Section and the Lower Section.

Once a box has been scored, it cannot be scored again for the rest of the game (except the Yahtzee category), so choose wisely.

Upper Section Scoring

If you score in the upper section of the table, your score is the total of the specified die face.

So if you roll: 5 - 2 - 5 - 6 - 5 and score in the Fives category, your total for the category would be 15, because there are three fives, which are added together.

If the One, Three or Four Categories were selected for scoring with this roll, you would score a zero.

If placed in the Two or Six category, you would score 2 and 6 respectively.

Bonus If the total of Upper scores is 63 or more, add a bonus of 35. Note that 63 is the total of three each of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 6s.

Lower Section Scoring

In the lower scores, you score either a set amount, or zero if you don't satisfy the category requirements.

3 and 4 of a kind For 3 of a kind you must have at least 3 of the same die faces. You score the total of all the dice. For 4 of a kind you would need 4 die faces the same.

Small and Large Straight

A Straight is a sequence of consecutive die faces, where a small straight is 4 consecutive faces, and a large straight 5 consecutive faces.

Small straights score 30 and a large 40 points.

So if you rolled: 2 - 3 - 2 - 5 - 4
you could score 30 in small straight or 0 in large straight.

Full House

A Full House is where you have 3 of a kind and 2 of a kind. Full houses score 25 points.

So if you rolled: 3 - 3 - 2 - 3 - 2
would score 25 in the Full House category.

First Yahtzee

A Yahtzee is 5 of a kind and scores 50 points, although you may elect NOT to score it as a yahtzee, instead choosing to take it as a top row score and safeguard your bonus.

Additional Yahtzees

If you roll a second Yahtzee in a game, and you scored your first yahtzee in the Yahtzee box, you would score a further bonus 100 points in the yahtzee box.

You must also put this roll into another category, as follows;

• If the corresponding Upper section category is not filled then you must score there.
  For example; if you rolled 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 and the Fours Category is not filled, you must put the score in the Fours category.
• If the corresponding Upper section category is filled you may then put the score anywhere empty on the Upper Section (scoring zero) or In any of the lower section which are empty;
  • 3 of a Kind (value of the die faces)
  • 4 of a Kind (value of the die faces)
  • Chance (value of the die faces)
  • Small Straight - 30 points
  • Large Straight - 40 points
  • Full House - 25 points
    

Chance

You can roll anything and be able to put it in the Chance category. You score the total of the die faces.

Scratch or Dump scores

You can score any roll in any category at any time, even if the resulting score is zero.

For example; you can take 2-3-3-4-6 in the 5's category.  Which would score 0.  This could be used near the end of a game to lose a poor roll against a difficult-to-get category that you've failed to fill (for example; long straight or yahtzee).