Yahtzee!!

Always a family favourite in our house, Yahtzee is a dice game that can be played by lots of people at one time and is a game of forethought and luck of the roll! The game has been around since 1956!

The object of the game is to score as many points as possible using rolls of dice and putting them in certain combinations that have numerical values. Ok, so sounds a bit complicated??, well it's not when you actually start playing and rolling the dice. Let me explain further.

Each person takes their turn in order. You have five dice which you can roll up to three times in each go. The game comes with a score sheet that shows you the different scoring combinations you can have with your dice. For example A Yahtzee is a five of a kind role so you have to role five 1's, or 2's or 3's or 4's or 5's or 6's. This is given the highest points value because it is quite hard to role a combination like this.

The scoring sheet is very helpful as it tells you what combinations you are going for and what combination of numbers on the dice face are needed. The score sheet is divided into two sections. The top section consists of scoring for single numbers and summing the total number of dice faces matching that box. For example if you roll 3 1's you get 3 points and so on, you get the point. There is a space on the sheet to write down your score. In the top section if you scores a total of at least 63 points in these boxes, a bonus of 35 points is added to the upper section score

The bottom section is where it gets a bit more exciting and complicated. This section contains a number of poker-themed combinations with specific point values. The combinations are as follows:

Three of a kind
Four of a kind
Full House - which is three of a kind and a pair
Small Straight - which is Four sequential dice (1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-5, or 3-4-5-6)
Large straight - which is Five sequential dice (1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6)
Yahtzee - which I've already explained above
Chance - which is any combination and helpful to put your score on near the end of the game if you are trying to for example get a four of a kind

Now, there is some strategy needed in this game. For example, if you role four 1's it's probably not a good idea to put them in the four of a kind section as you will only get 4 points, whereas if you role four 5's you should put this in the four of a kind section as it would get you 20 points, see the difference. Also, say you get to the end of the 13 rounds and you have not rolled a single four of a kind you can always put your bad score on the 1's section as this only has a maximum of 5 points anyway. With so many scoring possibilites there is always going to be a different winner which I think is fun. A score in the high 200's/early 300's is always good in my opinion but according to strategy websites on this game that I have read the highest score possible is actually 1,575 which is 13 Yahtzees rolled in one game, I think somewhat impossible but I would love to achieve it one day.

I really like this game because you get the thrill of throwing the dice and seeing what numbers come up (I think I have a bit of a gambling streak in me!), you owe a bit bad or good score to luck and its fun for the whole family to play. It's also a great way of getting familiar with poker again. According to current owner Hasbro, 50 million Yahtzee games are sold each year so obviously a very popular game!