Yahtzee rules & score sheet

You play Yahtzee with five dice and a score sheet. Yahtzee is also known as Kniffel in Europe; the rules are virtually identical. You try to roll the best combinations and collect as many points as possible over thirteen rounds. It sounds easy, but every turn you have to choose which box to sacrifice, and that choice is the game.

What do you need?

For a game of Yahtzee you need:

• Five dice: regular six-sided dice. No dice on hand? Use the online dice roller. The Yahtzee preset sets up five dice and lets you hold dice between rolls.
• A score sheet: paper with the thirteen boxes, one per player.
• A pen or pencil to write down the scores.
• Two or more players, or just yourself: Yahtzee works as a solo game too, with thirteen turns against your own record.

Objective of the game

You try to score as many points as possible over thirteen turns. Each turn you fill in exactly one box on your score sheet. Because there are thirteen boxes and thirteen turns, your score sheet ends up exactly full. Whoever has the most points after the last turn wins.

How a turn works

A turn consists of up to three rolls:

1. First roll: roll all five dice.
2. Second roll: set aside the dice you want to keep and reroll the rest. You may also reroll everything, or nothing at all.
3. Third roll: one more time, you may reroll some (or all, or none) of the dice.

After the third roll (or sooner, if you're happy) you pick a box on your score sheet and write down the score for the dice showing. If your roll doesn't fit a valuable box, you have to "sacrifice" a box and enter a zero.

The score sheet and scoring

The score sheet has two parts: the upper section and the lower section.

Upper section

In the upper section you only add up the dice showing one particular number.

Lower section

The lower section is all about combinations.

A small straight is four consecutive numbers (for example 1-2-3-4 or 3-4-5-6). A large straight is five consecutive numbers (1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6). "Chance" is your safety net: any roll at all can go there, and you add up all the dice.

Printable blank score sheet

No pre-printed score pad at home? Print a blank Yahtzee score sheet below for up to four players. Click the button to print only the score sheet. The rest of the page is left out.

Playing outside with giant dice? Set the scale to 150% in your browser's print dialog before you print. The boxes come out large enough to fill in with a marker, and a sheet of paper handles a windy picnic table better than a phone screen does.

The bonus and the Yahtzee bonus

There are two ways to grab extra points:

• Upper-section bonus (35 points): if you score at least 63 points in the upper section combined, you get 35 bonus points. 63 works out to an average of three dice of each number, which is a handy target while you play.
• Yahtzee bonus (100 points): if you roll a second (or third, fourth…) Yahtzee after you've already scored the first one for 50 points, every extra Yahtzee is worth 100 bonus points.

The Joker rule for an extra Yahtzee

If you roll a second Yahtzee while the Yahtzee box is already filled in, the so-called Joker rules apply. If you scored the first Yahtzee for 50 points, you get the 100-point bonus regardless. You still have to put the roll somewhere:

• First fill in the matching box in the upper section. Five fours go in "Fours", for example.
• If that box is already taken, you may enter the Yahtzee as a joker in an open box of the lower section. That includes full house (25), small straight (30), or large straight (40), even though strictly speaking it isn't a full house or a straight.
• If those are full too, you enter a zero in an open box of the upper section.

End of the game and winning

The game ends once everyone has filled in all thirteen boxes. For each player, add up the upper section (including the 35-point bonus) and the lower section. The player with the highest total wins.

Is your total any good? There is a precise yardstick for that. In 2003 a computer analysis of solitaire Yahtzee worked out the best possible strategy for every situation, and found that even perfect play averages about 255 points per game. So a total in the 200s is a good game, and anything over 300 means the dice helped too.

Playing with two, and playing solo

Nothing in the rules depends on how many people are at the table. Everyone gets thirteen turns and fills in the same thirteen boxes, so a two-player game is the same game as a six-player one. It finishes sooner and there's less waiting between your turns.

With two players

What changes with one opponent is information. You can see their entire sheet, which turns the back half of the game into a race you can actually plan instead of a hope you're doing fine.

• Watch their upper section. If they're already past 63 and you aren't, the 35-point bonus is going to them and you need those points back somewhere else, usually by holding out for a large straight or a Yahtzee instead of settling for a safe 20.
• Count their empty boxes. An opponent going into the last few turns with only "Yahtzee" and "large straight" open is one ordinary roll away from two zeros. If you're ahead at that point, take the safe score and let their sheet do the work for you.
• Sacrifice earlier than you would in a big game. With two players there are fewer turns between you and the end, so a box you're "saving for later" is often a box you'll be dumping a zero into anyway.

On your own

Solo Yahtzee is the same thirteen turns with your own previous best as the opponent. It's also the version mathematicians have studied most, which is why the perfect-play average of about 255 points mentioned above makes a good target.

It's also the version that suits a dice roller best: set the table to five dice, roll, hold what you want to keep, roll again. If you want to play a stretch of solo games on the couch, the free Android app puts the dice on your TV while you keep the score sheet in your lap.

Yahtzee vs Yatzy, Yacht, Kniffel and Yardzee

Five dice, three rolls and a grid of boxes turn up all over the world under different names, and the sheets are not interchangeable. Full house is a flat 25 in one version and the sum of your dice in another; the upper bonus is 35 points in one and 50 in the next. If someone hands you a score pad you don't recognize, read the printed values before the first roll.

Yatzy: the Scandinavian sheet

Yatzy is different enough that scoring it as Yahtzee will hand someone the wrong win. It has fifteen boxes rather than thirteen, and the extra two are one pair and two pairs, each scoring the sum of the dice involved. Three of a kind and four of a kind count only the matching dice, not all five. Full house scores the sum of all five dice instead of a flat 25. The straights are exact sequences: 1-2-3-4-5 is the small straight and scores 15, 2-3-4-5-6 is the large straight and scores 20. A Yatzy is still 50 points, and the upper-section bonus is still earned at 63, but it's worth 50 points instead of 35.

Yacht and Kniffel

Yacht is where all of this comes from: an older five-dice game documented at least as far back as 1938, and plainly what Yahtzee was built on. Its sheet has twelve boxes, no upper-section bonus and no bonus for rolling a second Yacht, and both of its straights are full five-die runs. It's the version to reach for if you want the game stripped back to its bones.

Kniffel is the German edition, published by Schmidt Spiele since 1972, and for practical purposes it is Yahtzee: same boxes, same 25 / 30 / 40 / 50, same 35-point bonus at 63. Settle one thing before you start, because printed rules disagree about what an extra Kniffel is worth. German rule sheets commonly award 50 points for it, while Hasbro's Yahtzee rules award 100. Agree which one you're playing before somebody rolls a second one.

Yardzee: Yahtzee in the backyard

Yardzee is the lawn version: the same thirteen boxes, played with oversized dice you toss underhand onto the grass. It's a folk game. Nobody publishes Yardzee, there is no official rule sheet, and the scoring card that came with your set is the final authority at your picnic table. Everything below is a house rule, so agree on it before the first toss.

• Yardzee uses five dice, even if your set came with six. This causes an argument roughly once per barbecue. The scoring is Yahtzee's, and Yahtzee is a five-dice game. The spare die isn't wasted, though: six giant dice let the same set cover six-dice games, and Farkle is the usual one.
• Decide what a cocked die is. Big dice land against tree roots and blanket folds constantly. A simple rule that works: if it isn't flat, re-roll that one die and leave the rest of the throw alone.
• Mark the throw area. A blanket or a mown rectangle. A die that leaves it gets re-rolled, which stops the debate about whether a downhill bounce counts.
• Roll low and underhand. Wooden dice hurt shins and dent siding, and a hard throw is also the one most likely to end up cocked.

For the sheet itself, use the printable score sheet above at 150% scale. The boxes are then big enough for a marker.

Tips & strategy

• Chase the 35-point bonus. Try to score at least three dice of each number in the upper section. The bonus is a free 35 points and often makes the difference.
• Save "Chance" and "ones" to sacrifice. If you have a worthless roll, dump it in a box that wasn't going to score much anyway.
• Hold fives and sixes. High numbers carry more weight, both for the upper section and for combinations like "four of a kind".
• Don't force a full house or a small or large straight. If it isn't working out, use a sacrifice box instead of wasting a good combination.

For a better feel for the odds, read how big the chance of each roll is.

If you like the hold-and-reroll rhythm of Yahtzee but would rather not fill in a sheet, Ship, Captain & Crew uses the same five dice and the same three rolls, and a round is over in a minute. Or take six dice and chase points with Farkle.