Yacht Dice Rules: Score Sheet, 12 Boxes and Scoring

2026-10-30

Yacht dice rules in short: you roll five dice up to three times per turn, keep the ones you like, and write the result into one of 12 boxes on your score sheet. Every box is used exactly once, so a match is 12 rounds, and the highest total wins. Five alike is a Yacht worth 50, and 63 or more in the six number boxes adds a +35 bonus. It plays with 2 to 6 players.

How a Yacht turn works

Roll all five dice. Then set aside any dice you want to keep and re-roll the rest, up to two more times, so three rolls at most. Kept dice are not locked in: a die you held on the second roll can be released before the third. You may stop and score after any roll, but you must write something every turn. When the dice fit nothing you want, you write a 0 in a box you are ready to give up. After 12 turns each the card is full and the match ends; if two players tie at the top, both win.

Yacht dice game scoring: all 12 boxes

The card lists the six number boxes first, then the six combination boxes. A number box counts only the dice showing its face; every combination box looks at all five dice.

The +35 bonus, and no bonus for a second Yacht

Add up your six number boxes. At 63 or more you earn +35, and it is added the moment you cross the line. 63 is three of every face: 3 × (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6) = 3 × 21 = 63. The bonus is hard to reach: in 800 bot games per level on this sheet, the easy bot reached 63 in 1.1% of games, the medium bot in 18.6% and the hard bot in 33.4%.

Yacht has no extra-Yacht bonus and no joker rule. A second five-alike is just another set of dice and scores wherever it fits: five Sixes are worth 30 in Sixes, 30 in Choice, 30 in Four of a Kind, 0 in Full House (five alike is not three plus two) and 50 in Yacht if that box is still open.

Yacht versus the classic 13-box sheet

If you know the classic sheet (full rules here), Yacht is the same dice game on a slimmer card with different prices on several boxes.

So Full House pays the total instead of a flat 25, the straights are cheaper, and a second five-alike earns nothing extra. Generala goes further and drops the upper bonus altogether; see the Generala rules.

What is a good Yacht score?

The Playgridia bots give a yardstick. Over 800 two-player games per level on the Yacht sheet, the easy bot averaged about 124, the medium bot about 173 and the hard bot about 179. A solid game lands around 170-180. The hard bot is only a little ahead of the medium one: head to head they split matches almost evenly (51% and 50% in two test runs).

For scale: if every box received its best possible dice the card would total 323 (105 from the number boxes, 183 from the combination boxes, plus the 35 bonus), a ceiling rather than a target. And totals do not carry across sheets: the medium bot averages about 231 on the classic sheet but 173 on Yacht.

Yacht tactics that follow from the scoring

Because Full House pays the total, the same box is worth very different amounts: 6-6-6-5-5 scores 28, three more than the flat 25 of the classic sheet, while 1-1-1-2-2 scores only 7. Choice accepts any five dice, so it is where a poor turn can still earn something. And a Small Straight pays 15, less than the 17.5 an average five-dice total (5 × 3.5) would put in Choice, although it is the easiest combination to hit:

The Yacht chase is the long shot. Holding four alike with one roll left, you finish a Yacht 1 time in 6 (16.7%); with two rolls left, 30.6%. Even so, the medium and hard bots wrote 50 in the Yacht box in about 29% and 30% of their games. More on holding and odds in the strategy tips and the odds guide.

Playing Yacht dice online

On Playgridia the player who creates the table chooses the sheet: "Yacht (12 boxes)" sits beside Classic (13 boxes), Scandinavian Yatzy (15 boxes) and Generala (11 boxes), and every sheet is free. Tables seat 2 to 6 players, and you can add bots to play alone.

The turn clock defaults to 45 seconds and covers all three rolls together; if it runs out, the game rolls once (if you had not rolled) and writes the dice into the open box that scores the most. The dice come from a commit-and-reveal ledger, and when the match ends "Verify the rolls" re-checks every roll in your browser. Against bots alone there is a hint button; at a table with two or more human players there is none.

No dice at hand? The printable score sheet page includes a Yacht sheet (PDF) with the 12 boxes, a one-line rule for each and columns for up to six players.

Before every roll, decide which box this turn is for, keep Choice open for the bad turns, and track your number boxes toward 63. When you want to try it, open a table on Yatzy, pick the Yacht sheet and aim for a card around 175.

Frequently Asked Questions