Yacht Dice Game Rules

Yacht is the game that Yahtzee and Yatzy grew out of. You need five dice, a pen and a sheet of paper. A cup to shake the dice in is nice to have, but the game does fine without one.

No shop sells a Yacht pad, so draw the sheet yourself: twelve rows down the page, one column per player, and a total at the bottom. The rows are ones, twos, threes, fours, fives and sixes, followed by little straight, big straight, full house, four of a kind, choice and Yacht. There is no upper or lower section, only the twelve rows and the total.

One to six players works well, and the game is just as good on your own. Decide who starts, say the player who rolls highest on a single die, and play passes clockwise.

Roll all five dice. Set aside the ones you want to keep and roll the rest again. Three rolls is the most you get, and you may stop earlier. If the first roll already suits a row, write it down and pass the dice on.

Once you stop rolling you have to enter a score in one of your open rows. Any row you like, in any order, and each row only once. When nothing fits, pick a row and write a zero in it.

The game runs for twelve rounds, one per row, and ends when the last row on every sheet is filled.

Six rows are about a single number each. The other six are about combinations, where some pay a fixed score and the rest pay the pips on the dice.

A number row counts only the dice showing that number. Roll 4, 4, 4, 2 and 6 and the fours row takes 12, no matter what the other two dice show. With no upper section bonus, those six rows are worth their pips and no more.

Entering a roll in a row it does not fit is allowed. The row then stands at zero, and some turns give you nothing better.

A full house needs three of one number and two of another, and it pays the pips on all five dice. So 6-6-6-5-5 is worth 28, while 1-1-1-2-2 scrapes together 7. Five alike does not count as a full house in Yacht, which means a Yacht cannot go in that row.

Four of a kind accepts four or five alike, but only four dice count towards the score. Roll 6-6-6-6-2 and the row pays 24, with the 2 left out. Put a Yacht here and the fifth die drops out the same way.

Yacht itself is five alike and pays 50, more than any other row on the sheet.

The first roll gives you 6, 6, 6, 3 and 3, a full house before you have made a single decision. The row pays the pips on all five dice, so that is 24 points and you can stop right there. The sixes row would take the same roll for 18.

Say the full house row has gone already. The three 6s stay on the table and the other two dice go back in the cup, coming up 4 and 6. Four 6s is worth 24 in four of a kind and the same 24 in sixes, with one die and one roll still to come.

A 6 on that last die makes it a Yacht worth 50. Anything else, and you write the 24 in whichever row you need it most before the dice move on.

Twelve rounds fill the sheet, and each player then adds up their own column. There is no bonus to tack on, so the twelve rows added together are the whole score, and the highest one wins.

297 is the perfect sheet: 105 from the number rows, 30 for each straight, 28 for the best full house, 24 for four of a kind, 30 in choice and 50 for the Yacht. Players who tie can share the win or play another game to settle it.

These rules follow the old twelve-row Yacht, played with five dice, three rolls per turn and 30 points for each of the two straights. The full house and four of a kind rows pay the pips on the dice, and there is no upper section bonus and no joker rule. Yacht is public domain, so other score tables are in use as well, and the common ones are listed under Variants.