Yahtzee! (Yahtzee)

Member Name: thespurs

Product:	Yahtzee
Date:	03/11/04 (131 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap to buy, Endless Fun, Good Present

Disadvantages: None

This game has to be one of my favourite games of all time. I can remember playing it from a very young age with my brothers and sisters and mother and father. They were all addicted to it and they would play the game most nights for a couple of weeks. It would then be put back in the cupboard for a month or two and then it would come out again for another frantic session of play. It seems to have been around for years and years, it always seems to be in the shop. It has gone through a number of re-inventions in its time and it now comes in a very colourful package.


I consider myself to be very good at simple mathematics such as addition and multiplication. I believe that this stemmed from playing a lot of Yahtzee when I was young, as I often had the task of adding up everybodies scores at the end of the game. It also taught me the basics of the timestables, such as if somebody scored four sixes i would multiply four by six and then write the score in. This is good for young children to play to help them get used to a bit of mathematics, in an environment that is fun.


The game is designed for a maximum number of five players and there is no defined age restrcitions for players that the game suits. To decide who throws first, each player throws one dice and the highest number wins and goes first. There are five dice used and each player in turn throws their dice and tries to achieve the hands they require. Each player plays individually to get the highest score that they can and that is then compared to the scores of the other players and a winner is declared.


The scoresheet is split into two parts. The top section is for the 1's to 6's. A player must achieve at least three 1's, 2's........6's, or a total of at least 63 in the top section, to get a bonus score of 35. An example would be that you only get two 1's but you then get an extra 4 which makes up for that. Some people use the top section just as a place to put scores that go wrong, because they concerntrate on the bottom half where you can get an awful lot more points for your work.


The bottom section is the best place to boost up your score. The three and four of a kind sections, are for when you get three and four identical dice. The total of all five dice is the score that you get, not just for the identical one. An example would be that you get three 5's, 1 and 3, so you would get a total of 19 points. The same rule applies for four of a kind as well. The next score is a full house, which means you need three identical dice and a pair of identical dice, for example three 3's and two 6's. If you get a full house, 25 points are awarded. The low and high straights get you 30 and 40 points respectively. A low straight is 1,2,3,4,5 and a high straight is 2,3,4,5,6. The Yahtzee is five of the same number and this gets you 50 points. If you get two Yahtzee's in a game, you get a bonus of 100 points and you to find another slot to put that extra score e.g. if you get five 5's you may have to put that in the 5's lot. The chance section is a life line where you can put the total score of any dodgy hands.


Each score can only be achieved once by each player in one game. For example, a player may only fill in the three of a kind slot once. If the throws of their dice leave them with no hand then they can use the chance box. If this has already been filled they will have to put a zero in another unused slot. You must make sure that you fill up every slot, even if you have to put a zero in, as the game nears its end.


The game is made by Hasbro and is available in all good toy stores, most ASDA supermarkets and online at hasbro.com and amazon.co.uk. I purchased this for £7.99 from ASDA a little while ago and it is still in the store for that price. I would certainly reccomend this game to anybody because it is fun and you will get a lot of usage out of it. Another good thing is that it is a short game that a lot of people can participate in, each game takes around 3 minutes per person to complete. It is a family game that everyone enjoys but you can also play it alone. It makes a superb small Christmas gift and it will be a huge return on the small initial outlay.

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