Roll for glory in Yahtzee
3 rolls left
Click dice to hold them between rolls.
Yahtzee is the classic poker-dice game. Each turn you roll five dice up to three times, holding the ones you like between rolls, then bank the result in one of thirteen scoring categories. Fill the whole card for the best total — and dream of rolling five of a kind: a Yahtzee.
How to play
Yahtzee in 4 steps
Roll the dice
Press Roll to throw all five dice (shown as real Unicode dice faces).
Hold and re-roll
Click any dice you want to keep, then roll again. You get up to three rolls per turn.
Score a category
Choose one of the 13 categories to bank your dice — from "Threes" to "Full House" to "Yahtzee". Each category is used once.
Fill the card
After 13 turns every category is filled. Maximise your grand total, including the upper-section bonus.
Controls
- Roll button
- Roll the un-held dice (up to 3 times per turn)
- Click a die
- Hold / release that die
- Click a category
- Score your current dice there
- R
- New game
Strategy
Tips to play better
Protect the upper bonus
Scoring an average of three-of-each in the upper section (1s–6s) earns a 35-point bonus. Aces and twos are the easiest to sacrifice if you must.
Keep big straights open
Sequences like 2-3-4-5 are valuable — hold the run and re-roll the odd die out rather than breaking it for a small gain.
Use Chance as a dump
The Chance category scores any roll, so save it for a turn that misses everything else rather than wasting a zero elsewhere.
Gamble early, bank late
With categories still open you can afford to chase a Yahtzee. Near the end, take the safe points to avoid scoring a zero.
About Yahtzee
Yahtzee was popularised by Edwin Lowe in the 1950s — the story goes a wealthy couple played their own "Yacht game" aboard their boat, and Lowe bought the rights and rebranded it. It has since sold tens of millions of sets and become a family-table institution worldwide.
Beneath the luck of the dice is a surprising amount of strategy. With three rolls and thirteen categories, every turn is a small expected-value decision: which dice to hold, which category to fill, and when to gamble on a big combination versus banking a safe score. Optimal Yahtzee play has been computed in detail by mathematicians.
This Unicode edition shows the dice as the actual Unicode die-face characters (⚀ ⚁ ⚂ ⚃ ⚄ ⚅) — a perfect match for the site's "made of characters" idea. Hold dice with a click, score with a click, and your best grand total is saved locally in your browser.
FAQ
Yahtzee questions
How many rolls do I get each turn?
What is a Yahtzee?
How does the bonus work?
What if my roll matches nothing?
Is my best score saved?
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