Guide
How to Play Yahtzee
Yahtzee is the classic five-dice game of push-your-luck scoring: up to three rolls per turn, hold the dice you like, then commit the result to one of thirteen scorecard categories.
The OPKA table deals every roll from a seeded stream, so finished games can be replayed and verified for the leaderboard — your grand total is validated on the server, not just reported.
How a turn works
Roll all five dice, then up to two more times, holding any dice between rolls. When you stop, you must score exactly one open category — even if the best available score is zero.
The game lasts thirteen turns, one per category. Choosing which category to sacrifice when the dice go cold is most of the skill.
- Upper section: Aces through Sixes score the sum of matching dice.
- Lower section: kinds, full house, straights, Yahtzee, and chance.
- Three rolls maximum per turn; holds carry between rolls.
The scoring table
Three and four of a kind score the sum of all five dice. A full house scores 25, a small straight 30, a large straight 40, and a Yahtzee — five of a kind — scores 50. Chance always scores the dice total.
Scoring 63 or more across the upper section (an average of three dice per face) earns a 35-point bonus.
Bonus Yahtzees and jokers
Roll a second Yahtzee after scoring 50 in the Yahtzee box and you earn a 100-point bonus each time. The dice then act as a joker: if the matching upper box is taken, they can fill the full house or straight boxes at full value.
Playing the odds
Chase the upper bonus early — it is worth more than most single lower boxes. Keep pairs and triples toward faces you still need upstairs, and remember that chance is a pressure valve for a bad turn, not a first choice.