Yatzy Rules: How to Play, Points and the 63 Bonus

2026-10-30

Yatzy rules in one breath: you roll five dice up to three times per turn, keep any of them between rolls, then write the result into one box of your score sheet. On the classic sheet 13 turns fill 13 boxes, and the highest total wins.

How a Yatzy turn works

Two to six players take turns. On your turn:

1. Roll all five dice.
2. Roll again if you want, up to three rolls in all. Before each re-roll you choose which dice to keep; the rest are thrown again. Keeping is not a promise: a die held on the second roll can be released before the third.
3. Write the dice into exactly one open box. You can stop and score after any roll, and that box is then closed for the match.

There is no passing: every turn fills a box. If nothing fits, you write a 0 in the box you can best afford to lose, which is called scratching. The match ends when every player has filled every box.

Two turns from a match we played while writing this guide

First roll 4-4-2-3-5. The 2-3-4-5 is already a Small Straight, so we kept those four and re-rolled the spare 4 twice, hoping for a 1 or a 6 to make a Large Straight. A single die shows a 1 or a 6 one time in three, so two tries work about 56% of the time. It came up 4 both times and we wrote Small Straight 30. The gamble was free: the 2-3-4-5 stayed in hand whatever the spare die showed.

Next turn: 6-6-6-6-1 on the first roll, a throw of at least four alike that turns up about once in 50. We kept the four 6s. The free die showed a 3, then a 6: Yatzy, 50 points. Holding four alike with two rolls left finishes the Yatzy 30.6% of the time.

The classic 13-box sheet

The upper section, Ones to Sixes, counts only the dice showing that number. The lower section pays for combinations.

The 63 bonus and the extra Yatzy

Upper bonus: +35 at 63

If your six upper boxes add up to 63 or more, you earn +35, added as soon as you reach it. 63 is exactly three of every number, so the target is three of a kind in each upper box. It is far from automatic: over 800 simulated classic matches per level, the hard bot reached 63 in 42.6% and the medium bot in 15.6%.

Extra Yatzy: +100, and the joker is forced

Roll five alike after your Yatzy box is filled and you have an extra Yatzy. It pays +100 only if the Yatzy box holds 50; if you scratched Yatzy for 0, later five-alikes pay nothing extra. The dice also go where the rules send them, in this order:

1. If that number's upper box is open, only there (five 6s go in Sixes for 30).
2. Otherwise, into any open lower box at its full value (Full House 25, Small Straight 30, Large Straight 40, the others the total).
3. Only if every lower box is closed do they go into an open upper box, for 0.

How the game ends, and ties

Each total is the boxes plus the upper bonus plus any +100s, and the highest total wins. Players tied at the top all win; if everyone ties it is a draw. There is no tie-break. For scale, perfect play on the American 13-box sheet averages about 255 points (T. Verhoeff's optimal solitaire player, 1999); our hard bot averages about 241 in simulation.

Each turn has one clock for rolls and scoring: 45 seconds by default, with 30, 60, 90 and 600 as options. When it runs out, the game rolls once if you had not rolled and writes the dice into the open box that scores the most.

Scandinavian Yatzy: the 15-box sheet

The host picks the sheet when creating the table. Scandinavian has 15 boxes, adds One Pair and Two Pairs, and changes what most combinations pay. Chance and Yatzy are unchanged.

Two Pairs needs two different numbers, so 6-6-6-6-1 scores 0 there. Exact straights are far harder: playing only for 1-2-3-4-5 reaches it within three rolls 19.7% of the time, against 61.5% for the classic "any four in a row". With no joker, a second five-alike is just another set of dice: 5-5-5-5-5 scores 10 in One Pair or 20 in Four of a Kind.

The Yacht and Generala sheets

Yacht has 12 boxes: Choice replaces Chance, there is no Three of a Kind, Four of a Kind and Full House pay the total, the straights pay 15 and 30, and the bonus is +35 at 63. See the Yacht rules guide.

Generala has 11 boxes, no upper bonus and no Chance. Its twist is servida: Escalera (a straight, 20; ace-high 3-4-5-6-1 counts), Full (30) and Póker (40) each pay +5 when made on the first roll of a turn. Generala pays 50, and Doble Generala 100 only if the Generala box holds 50. A served Generala does not win the match outright here (a house rule elsewhere). See the Generala rules guide.

Playing Yatzy online

Tap a die to keep it and it slides to the shelf under the felt; tap it again to release it. The green numbers on the score card show what each open box would score with the dice you have now. Tap a box to select it, and the big green button shows the points ("Score · Twos 4"); pressing it writes the score.

At tables against bots, a hint bulb appears after your first roll; tap it and either the dice to keep glow or the box to score pulses. It follows the medium bot's one-roll-ahead logic, so it is a second opinion, not perfect play. The lock icon opens the "Fair dice" panel, where you can check every roll after the match.

So what do you do with this?

Start on the classic sheet and ask of every roll: which open box does this fill best, and does it keep the 63 bonus alive? Remember that scratching Yatzy switches off every later +100. For paper play grab the printable score sheet, for what to keep read the strategy guide, and when you are ready open a table against a bot.

Frequently Asked Questions