Yahtzee
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Yahtzee is the trademarked name of a popular dice game made by Milton Bradley (now owned by Hasbro). The object of the game is to score the most points by rolling five dice to make certain combinations. The dice can be rolled up to three times in a turn to try to make one of the thirteen possible scoring combinations. A game of Yahtzee consists of thirteen rounds during which the player chooses which scoring combination is to be used in that round. Once a combination has been used in the game, it cannot be used again.
Each of the scoring combinations has a different point value, some of which are fixed values and others of which have the cumulative value of the dice. A Yahtzee is a five-of-a-kind and holds the game's highest point value of 50.
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[edit] Overview of the Rules
The Yahtzee scorecard contains thirteen boxes divided between two sections: The Upper Section and The Lower Section
[edit] Upper Section
In the upper section, each box is scored by summing the total number of die faces matching that box. For example if a player were to roll three "twos", the score would be recorded as 6 in the twos box. If a player obtains or exceeds 63 points, a bonus of 35 points is added to the upper section score. Though 63 points corresponds to three-of-a-kind for each of the six die faces, the easiest and most common way to get the bonus is rolling four (or five) of a larger number so that not many of the lower ones are needed.
[edit] Lower Section
The lower section contains a number of poker-themed combinations with specific point values:
- Three-of-a-Kind (sum all dice)
- Four-of-a-Kind (sum all dice)
- Full House 25pts
- Small straight 30pts
- Large straight 40pts
- Five-of-a-Kind (Yahtzee) 50pts
- Chance (sum all dice)
Chance often acts as discard box for a turn that will not fit in another category (thus the name), although during a lucky game it can be used to record a high score.
[edit] Game Play
On each turn, a player gets up to three rolls of the dice. He or she can save any dice that are wanted to complete a combination and then re-roll the other dice. After the third roll, the player must find a place to put the score (though he or she can choose to end the turn and score after one or two rolls if desired). If the resulting combination of dice will not fit in any unused scoring category, the player must place a "zero" in one of the unused boxes.
Each player's total score is calculated by summing all thirteen score boxes.
[edit] Yahtzees and bonus chips
A Yahtzee occurs when all five dice have the same value during a player's turn. Yahtzee is the most difficult combination to throw in a game and has the high score of 50 points. If a player scores one or more additional yahtzees during the same game, that player is awarded bonus points and given bonus chips that correspond to each additional Yahtzee that a player rolls. Bonus yahtzees are worth 100 points each. Bonus chips are only awarded for subsequent Yahtzees if the first Yahtzee was placed in the 50pt Yahtzee score box. Additional Yahtzees may be used as wild cards in the lower section provided that the corresponding upper section box has been filled. For example, if a player rolled out five threes (a Yahtzee in the threes), the player could only use it as a wild card in the lower section if he or she already had a score in the "threes" box in the upper section. If the "threes" box was still open, the player must score 15 in the threes (sum of five threes). (The original game rules released in 1956 contain a discrepancy in this rule. The booklet states that additional Yahtzees must be used as Jokers in the lower section and does not allow for their use in the upper section. However, the booklet also declares the highest possible score as 375 which would require the placement of Yahtzees in the upper section. This problem was corrected when the game was re-copyrighted in 1961.)
[edit] Game Played Solitaire
Yahtzee may also be played solitaire with the player attempting to reach the maximum possible score of 375.
[edit] Mathematics of Yahtzee
[edit] Maximum Score
The maximum score of 375 is achieved by scoring 5x1's (5pts), 5x2's (10pts), 5x3's (15pts), 5x4's (20pts), 5x5's (25pts), 5x6's (30pts), Bonus for top row score equaling or exceeding 63pts (35pts), 3-of-a-kind as 5x6's (30pts), 4-of-a-kind as 5x6's (30pts), Full House (25pts), Small Straight (30pts), Long Straight (40pts), Yahtzee (50pts) and Chance as 5x6's (30pts).
If you include the Yahtzee bonuses too, this score can be elevated to 1575 pts. These 12 bonuses are awarded for each of the top row Yahtzees and the Yahtzees in 3-of-a-kind, 4-of-a-kind, full house, large straight, small straight and chance boxes. In this case you would fill in the Yahtzee score first, fill in the upper scores second and then use the remaining yahtzee's as wild cards for full house, sm straight and lg straight.
[edit] Minimum Score
The lowest possible score is 5. This is achieved by scoring zero in all the top row boxes (and therefore also not getting the bonus), and scoring zero in all the bottom row boxes apart from the chance box. The chance box of course will always have some value. In this case a Yahtzee of 1's is used to accumulate 5pts. There is no rule that requires a Yahtzee to be scored in the Yahtzee box which would otherwise have incurred a 50pt score.
[edit] Probabilities
The probability of rolling a Yahtzee at any point in the game is 4.6% (or about 1 in 21 attempts). [1] The probability of rolling a specific Yahtzee (e.g. All 1's) is one sixth of this, or 0.76%. Calculating the pure probability of beating a given score in a single game is virtually incalculable since it is partly a function of game tactics. However, this can be assessed by playing many games and observing scores achieved. [2]
[edit] Getting the minimum score
The minimum score is achieved by one specific Yahtzee (that of all 1's) and careful scoring of zero in all the other boxes. A specific Yahtzee has a probability of 0.76% or about 1 in 130 rolls. In order to avoid over-complicating the probability calculations it is necessary to keep rolling dice without starting a game until you get the Yahtzee of 1's, then carefully using your remaining 12 rolls to ensure that you score zero in the other boxes.
[edit] Getting the maximum score
The probability of achieving the maximum possible score is much lower. To do this, you'd need to roll 13 consecutive Yahtzees, of which 9 would need to be specific ones.
With the probability of a specific Yahtzee at 0.76% and the non-specific at 4.6%, there is a combined probability that 1 game in 3.69 x 1021 (1 in 3.69 thousand billion billion) would lead to the highest score.
If you were to roll the dice once every second, you would have to do this for 160 thousand billion years to have a 50% chance of getting the high score. To put this in perspective, if every one of the 6.5 billion people in the current world population were to start rolling dice now at one roll per second, it would still take the next 25,000 years.
[edit] History
E.S. Lowe filed Yahtzee as a trademark with the U.S. Patent Office on April 19, 1956. The first commercial usage of the name Yahtzee was a few weeks earlier on April 3. Lowe classified his product as a "Poker Dice Game".
According to Hasbro, the game was invented in 1954 by an anonymous Canadian couple, who called it "The Yacht Game" because they played it on their yacht with their friends.[3] Two years later they asked toy and game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe if he would make up some sets to be given as gifts to their friends who enjoyed the game. Lowe perceived the possibility of marketing the game, and acquired the rights to the game from the couple in exchange for 1,000 gift sets. This story is expanded by E.S. Lowe in the 1973 book A Toy is Born. According to Lowe, the game did not initially do well commercially, since the rules and appeal were not easily conveyed in an advertisement. Eventually he had the idea of organizing "Yahtzee parties" where people could play the game and thereby gain a firsthand appreciation for it. The idea was successful, and enthusiasts quickly popularized the game through word of mouth.
However, the overall concept of Yahtzee traces its roots to a number of traditional dice games. Among these are the Puerto Rican game Generala, and the English games of Poker dice and Cheerio. Most notable is the dice game named Yacht which is an English cousin of Generala. This game is fully explained in The Complete Book of Games by Clement Wood and Gloria Goddard (1940). This predecessor is extremely similar to Yahtzee in both name and content. The game's rules differ from those of Yahtzee in the following ways:it does not have an upper section bonus, both straights are a sequence of five (must attain 23456 and 12345), full house is scored by summing all dice, there is no three-of-a-kind category, and the highest possible score is 302. Wood classifies Yacht and a similar three dice game called Crag as sequence dice games.
The E.S. Lowe company sold Yahtzee from 1956 to 1973. During Lowe's ownership, a number of changes were made to the game's packaging, contents, and appearance. Between 1956 and 1961, the game's advertising slogan was changed from:
The Game That Makes You THINK While Having FUN
to the new slogan
The FUN Game That Makes THINKING fun!
The game and its contents were copyrighted by E.S. Lowe in 1956, 1961, 1967, and 1972. In 1973, Milton Bradley purchased the E.S. Lowe Company and assumed the rights to produce and sell Yahtzee. During Lowe's ownership over 40 million Yahtzee games were sold in America and around the globe. The game has maintained its popularity. According to current owner Hasbro, fifty million Yahtzee games are sold each year.
Over time, the Yahtzee logo has taken several forms. The original version of the Logo was used throughout the entire period that the game was produced solely by the E.S. Lowe company. After 1973, the logo changed various times. This logo is found on the scorecards and the game boxes. (See image of the logos in the "Rules" section above)
[edit] Evolution of the Game Packaging and Contents
Over the time period from the first sale in 1956 to the present day, many changes have been made to the packaging and contents of the game. This is a brief overview of the evolution of the packaging from 1956 to 2004. The dates here denote the latest copyright date on each version of the game. Often the latest copyright date is only stated on the instruction booklet, not on the box. All boxes prior to 1973 only have the original copyright date of 1956. The following gallery exhibits the evolution of the Yahtzee game box over time. The differences in same-date varieties stem from the use of different dice cups (paper cup with rim, paper cup no rim, plain plastic, ridged plastic etc.) and box differences.
[edit] Deluxe and Collector Edition Games
Deluxe edition games have been sold alongside the regular issue games since the early 1960’s. They all contain components that are more luxurious than standard game parts. In recent years, a number of collector issue Yahtzees have been sold as well.
[edit] Other Versions of Standard Yahtzee
Since the 1970's, Travel Yahtzee has been sold in various forms as part of Milton Bradley's line of travel games. Currently, a zip-up cloth deluxe folio edition is sold instead of the old travel game edition. Various Yahtzee console games have been sold over the years including an early version on the TI-99 4A computer. In 1996, the game was first released to PC and Mac customers. This "Ultimate Yahtzee" CD-rom game contained standard Yahtzee as well as other varieties. There are also several electronic versions of the game such as a handheld LCD version, and a cell phone version called Yahtzee Deluxe, which features the original rules along with several other modes.
[edit] Related Games
A number of related games under the Yahtzee brand have been produced. These include: Triple Yahtzee (1972), Word Yahtzee (1978), Challenge Yahtzee (1974), Casino Yahtzee (1986), Jackpot Yahtzee (1980), Showdown Yahtzee (1991), Yahtzee Texas Holdem' (2005), and Yahtzee Deluxe Poker (2005).
The 1970s TV game show Spin-Off was based on the game. Another, similarly short-lived, TV game show adaptation, Yahtzee, was syndicated to local stations during the 1987 season.
[edit] Other games similar to Yahtzee
- Balut is the name of a Danish Dice game played by expatriates in many countries all over the world. The name of the game has been taken from Balut eggs. Games are organized monthly by IBF (International Balut Federation) members.
- Greased Lightning Yahtzee is a fast paced version of the game
- Kismet has rules almost identical to those of Yahtzee but have dice with multiple colors. Numbers and colors are taken into account when scoring in these games.
- Red Hot Yott, a game produced by Fundex Games, has rules almost identical to Yahtzee, but with aces being wild. For effect, Japanese dice, which have oversized, red-colored aces, are used in this game.
- Phase 10 Dice, also produced by Fundex Games, was inspired by the card game Phase 10 but is simliar to Yahtzee in that specific "hands" of dice (called Phases) must be completed in order to score points.
- Poker Dice
- YAMB is a more complex variant of Yahtzee, played with 6 dice, has at least 4 vertical columns (6 is a common) that all require different strategies in order to win. There are some other changes as well. Its origin is not known, but it's extensively being played in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and other Ex-Yugoslavia countries.
- Let 'em Roll is the pricing game from The Price Is Right played for a car, with one free roll. In the grocery part, a player must win two more rolls to roll five dice. The game ends when either a player bails out with whatever cash s/he rolled, runs out of three rolls depending on results of his/her rolls, or rolls five cars resulting in a car win.
