Yatzy — Play the Classic Dice Game Online Free

Yatzy is the classic dice game of five dice, three rolls a turn and a scorecard to fill. Roll the dice, keep the ones you like and roll the rest up to twice more, then write your score in one empty box, such as Sixes, Full House or Large Straight. Every box is used once, so choosing which box to fill, and which to give up, is the whole game. When the card is full, the highest total wins.

Play Yatzy online here as a free dice game in your browser on a computer, tablet or phone, with no sign-up and no download. Play solo and chase your high score, or take on one to three computer players at Easy, Normal or Hard. Pick Classic scoring, the American rules most players know, or Scandinavian Yatzy with its One Pair and Two Pairs boxes. After every roll the scorecard shows what each empty box would score, the Hint button suggests which dice to keep, and your game saves itself as you play, so you can close the page and finish it later.

How to Play Yatzy

Each player has a scorecard with 13 boxes, or 15 in Scandinavian Yatzy. On your turn:

1. Roll all five dice.
2. Keep any dice you like and roll the rest. You get up to three rolls in all. You can keep a die after one roll and roll it again after the next, and you can stop after the first or second roll.
3. Score in one empty box. Write in what your dice are worth there: 15 in Fives for three fives, or 25 for a Full House. You must fill a box every turn, so when the dice fit nothing you want, you put a 0 in a box you can spare. That is called scratching a box.

A filled box cannot be changed. The game ends when every box is filled: 13 turns with Classic rules, 15 with Scandinavian. Add up the card, plus the upper bonus if your Ones to Sixes reach 63 points, and the highest total wins.

Against the computer, players take turns in order, each with a column on the scorecard. The highest total wins the game, and players who tie for the top share the win.

Playing on this page

• Roll: press the Roll button. It shows how many rolls you have left, for example “Roll · 2 left”.
• Keep dice: tap or click a die to hold it. A held die sits raised with a HELD tag and stays put when you roll. Tap it again to let it go.
• Score: after each roll, every empty box shows in a lighter colour what it would score with the dice on the table, and the best one is highlighted. Tap a box to write the score in. If that score is 0, a short message lets you undo it for three seconds.
• Undo: takes back your last scoring, as long as nobody has rolled since.
• Hint: shows the dice the Hard computer player would keep, or the box it would score in. Use it as often as you like; the game counts how many hints you took.
• Settings hold the rules, Solo or vs Computer, the number of computer players, their level and the sound, plus your statistics: games played, high score, average score, Yatzys and how often you made the upper bonus, and your wins, ties and losses against the computer. They are kept separately for each rule set, in your browser on this device.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Space or Enter rolls the dice
• 1–5 hold or release a die, counting from the left, and Esc releases them all
• H shows a hint, U undoes your last scoring
• N starts a new game (it asks first if you are in the middle of one)

Yatzy Scoring

The scorecard has two halves. The upper section is the same in both rule sets: Ones to Sixes, where you add up only the dice showing that number, so three fours in Fours score 12. If the upper section adds up to 63 or more, you earn a bonus. 63 is exactly three of each number (3 + 6 + 9 + 12 + 15 + 18), so think of three of a kind in every upper box as par. The lower section holds the poker-style hands, and that is where the two rule sets differ.

Classic scoring

Classic is the default and the scoring most American players grew up with.

Box	What scores	Max
Ones to Sixes	The total of the dice showing that number	5–30
Upper bonus	+35 when Ones to Sixes add up to 63 or more	35
Three of a Kind	At least three alike: the total of all five dice	30
Four of a Kind	At least four alike: the total of all five dice	30
Full House	Three alike plus a pair of another number	25
Small Straight	Four in a row: 1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-5 or 3-4-5-6	30
Large Straight	Five in a row: 1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6	40
Yatzy	All five dice alike	50
Chance	Any dice: the total of all five	30
Yatzy bonus	+100 for each extra Yatzy while the Yatzy box holds 50	+100

Extra Yatzys and the Joker rule

Roll a Yatzy when your Yatzy box is already filled and two things happen. First, if the box holds 50 you earn a 100-point bonus; if you scratched it with a 0, there is no bonus. Then the Joker rule decides where the roll goes. It must go in the matching upper box, five 4s in Fours, if that box is still empty. If it is filled, use any empty lower box, where Full House, Small Straight and Large Straight score their full 25, 30 and 40 even though five alike are not those hands. If the lower section is full as well, put a 0 in an empty upper box. The game applies the rule for you and only lets you tap the boxes it allows.

Thirteen Yatzys in a row would score 1,575, the highest possible Classic total.

Scandinavian scoring

Scandinavian Yatzy has 15 boxes, a bigger bonus and hands that score only the dice that make them.

Box	What scores	Max
Ones to Sixes	The total of the dice showing that number	5–30
Upper bonus	+50 when Ones to Sixes add up to 63 or more	50
One Pair	Two alike: the total of the highest pair	12
Two Pairs	Two pairs of different numbers: the total of those four dice	22
Three of a Kind	Three alike: the total of those three dice	18
Four of a Kind	Four alike: the total of those four dice	24
Small Straight	Exactly 1-2-3-4-5	15
Large Straight	Exactly 2-3-4-5-6	20
Full House	Three alike plus a pair of another number: the total of all five dice	28
Chance	Any dice: the total of all five	30
Yatzy	All five dice alike	50

Because only the matching dice count, 5-5-5-2-1 scores 15 in Three of a Kind, not 18. Four or five alike do not count as Two Pairs, and five alike are not a Full House. There is no bonus for extra Yatzys and no Joker rule, and the best possible score is 374.

Yatzy Strategy Tips

To build the computer players we tested three levels over 2,000 solo games each, with both rule sets. The Hard player looks at all 32 ways to hold the dice and every roll that can follow, two rolls deep, and weighs the points a box gives now against what keeping it open is worth later. Normal looks one roll ahead with simpler values, and Easy keeps its most common number, or a run of four, and takes the biggest score in sight. The Hint button uses the Hard player.

The perfect-play figure for Classic scoring was worked out exactly by Tom Verhoeff of Eindhoven University of Technology: an average of 254.59 points, with a median game of 248 (see his statistics for the optimal solo player). Our Hard player finishes about 5 points a game behind that. Here is what separates the levels.

Play for the upper bonus

The gap between our players is not luck with Yatzys. Easy actually fills the Yatzy box with 50 more often than Hard (39% of Classic games against 32%), but it makes the upper bonus in only 3% of games. Normal makes it in 31% and Hard in 65%, and that bonus alone is worth about 21 of the 41 points a game between Easy and Hard. So aim for three of each number: four fives in Fives puts you 5 points ahead of par, two sixes in Sixes leaves you 6 behind, and the scorecard keeps count under the upper section. With Scandinavian rules the bonus is 50 points, and Hard makes it in 79% of games.

Keep pairs and sets

With a pair or three of a kind after the first roll, keep them and roll the rest. That one keep feeds the upper box for that number, Three and Four of a Kind, Full House and Yatzy all at once. If you go all out for a Yatzy from the start of a turn, always keeping your most common number, you will make one 4.6% of the time, about once every 22 turns. A Yatzy on the very first roll comes up once in 1,296 turns.

Straights: keep the open end

Four in a row with room at both ends, 2-3-4-5, becomes a Large Straight with a 1 or a 6, and with two rolls left that comes in 56% of the time. A run of 1-2-3-4 or 3-4-5-6 needs one exact number and comes in only 31% of the time. With Classic rules four in a row is already a Small Straight, so rolling the fifth die costs nothing: the 30 is still there if the 40 misses. Scandinavian straights are worth only 15 and 20, less than a good Full House, so they are not worth chasing at any cost.

Where to put a bad roll

Sooner or later a roll fits nothing. Ones is the cheapest box to spend, since even five ones score only 5 and a short Ones box barely dents the bonus. Chance takes any roll at full value, which makes it the best rescue for a high roll that missed everything, so try to save it for later in the game. Late in the game the Yatzy box is often the right place for a zero: perfect play leaves it at 0 in almost two games out of three, and our Hard player scores 50 there in 32% of games. Avoid scratching Large Straight or Full House early, because they are worth their full 40 and 25 whenever you make them.

Yatzy vs Yahtzee® vs Generala

These games belong to one family of five-dice games. The oldest known member is Yacht, described in The Complete Book of Games in 1938, with 12 boxes, no upper bonus and no four-dice Small Straight.

Yahtzee® was launched in the United States by Edwin S. Lowe in 1956 and is now a trademark of Hasbro. Our Classic rules use the same scoring: the 35-point bonus, Full House 25, straights 30 and 40, and a 100-point bonus with the Joker rule for every extra five of a kind. This game is not made by or affiliated with Hasbro.

Yatzy is the name used in the Nordic countries, where the game is most popular in its Scandinavian form, the one in our Settings: 15 boxes with One Pair and Two Pairs, a 50-point bonus, fixed straights worth 15 and 20, and hands scored by the dice that make them. Nordic players also have Forced Yatzy, where the boxes are filled in order from top to bottom, and Maxi Yatzy, played with six dice. Neither is offered here.

Generala is most popular in Latin America. It has the six number boxes plus Straight (20), Full House (30), Four of a Kind (40), Generala for five alike (50) and Double Generala (100). Those hands earn extra points when made on the first roll of a turn, and a Generala on the first roll wins the game on the spot.

If you like dice games, try Backgammon against the computer next, or browse the puzzle and strategy games below.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Yatzy free to play?

Yes. Yatzy here is free, with nothing to buy, no sign-up and no download. There is no money and no betting in it: you play for points and your own high score.

What is a good Yatzy score?

With Classic rules, perfect play averages 254.6 points, so anything over 250 is a strong game and 300 or more is excellent. Our Normal computer player averages 237. With Scandinavian rules totals run lower: our Hard player averages 241, and the best possible score is 374.

Is Yatzy the same as Yahtzee®?

Very nearly. Our Classic rules score the game the way the American trademarked version does, with the 35-point bonus, a 25-point Full House, straights worth 30 and 40, a 100-point bonus for each extra five of a kind and the Joker rule. Scandinavian Yatzy scores differently, with One Pair and Two Pairs boxes and a 50-point bonus. This game is not affiliated with Hasbro.

What happens if you roll a second Yatzy?

With Classic rules, a Yatzy rolled when the Yatzy box already holds 50 earns a 100-point bonus. Whether that box holds 50 or 0, the Joker rule then decides where the roll goes: in the matching upper box if it is empty, otherwise in any empty lower box at full value, and if those are all filled, as a 0 in an upper box. With Scandinavian rules there is no bonus, and you score it in any empty box like any other roll.

Can I play Yatzy against the computer?

Yes. Choose vs Computer in Settings and play against one, two or three computer players at Easy, Normal or Hard. You take turns in order, each with your own column on the scorecard, and the highest total wins. In our tests with Classic rules, the Easy player averages about 209 points, Normal 237 and Hard 250.

How does the Hint button work?

Press Hint and the game shows which dice the Hard computer player would keep, or which box it would score in once you have finished rolling. It works this out on the spot from every way to hold the dice and every roll that could follow. Use it as often as you like; the game counts how many hints you took.