How to Play Yacht Dice

Yacht Dice is a game for one or more players with five ordinary six-sided dice and a score card of 13 boxes. Each turn you roll the dice up to three times, keeping the ones you like, and then write a score in one empty box. After 13 turns every box is filled and the highest total wins. Played alone, the goal is simply to beat your own best score. On kawu you can play solo, against the computer, or take the daily challenge, where everyone in the world gets the same dice on the same day.

The game descends from the old public-domain dice game Yacht and belongs to the same family as commercial versions such as Yahtzee® (a trademark of Hasbro). The rules below follow the scoring most commonly used in North America.

Setup

You need:

• Five dice. On kawu they are on screen.
• A score card for each player, with 13 empty boxes: six in the upper section and seven in the lower section.

Decide who goes first. On kawu, you always start and the computer plays second.

How a turn works

1. Roll all five dice.
2. Hold or reroll. Pick any dice you want to keep (tap them on kawu; held dice lift up and get an outline). Roll the others again. You can change your mind and hold a different set before each roll. Dice you held on the second roll can be rerolled on the third.
3. Roll a third time if you like. You never have to use all three rolls.
4. Score. Choose one empty box and write in the points the dice are worth there. Our score card shows a grey preview number in every open box so you can compare before you choose.

That box is now used for the rest of the game, even if you scored zero in it. Play passes to the next player.

The score card

Upper section

Each upper box counts only one face. For example, with 4-4-2-4-6, the Fours box scores 4 + 4 + 4 = 12. The other dice don't count.

The number 63 is what you get with exactly three of every face (3 + 6 + 9 + 12 + 15 + 18). Getting four of a face somewhere makes up for only two of another.

Lower section

A few details people often ask about:

• Three and Four of a Kind count all five dice, not just the matching ones. 6-6-6-2-1 is worth 21 as Three of a Kind.
• A large straight also counts as a small straight, so 1-2-3-4-5 can go in either box.
• A small straight may contain a repeat, such as 1-2-3-4-4.
• Five of a kind is not a full house under the normal rules, because a full house needs two different faces. (The Joker rule below changes this for later fives of a kind.)
• If the dice don't qualify for a box, you can still put them there for zero. Sometimes that is the best choice.

Five of a Kind bonus and the Joker rule

The first time you roll five of a kind, you can score it anywhere. Most players take the 50 in the Five of a Kind box.

After the Five of a Kind box is filled, every further five of a kind triggers two rules:

1. Bonus. If that box holds 50, you earn an extra 100 points. If you had already scored 0 there, there is no bonus.
2. Joker placement. The roll must be placed in this order:
   • In the matching upper box (Sixes for five 6s, and so on), if it is still empty.
   • Otherwise, in any empty lower box. Here the roll acts as a "joker": Full House scores 25, Small Straight 30 and Large Straight 40, even though the dice don't really form them. Three of a Kind, Four of a Kind and Chance score the total of the dice, as usual.
   • If the lower section is full too, you must write 0 in an empty upper box.

On kawu the score card only lets you pick the boxes the Joker rule allows, and the status bar tells you why.

End of the game and winning

After 13 turns each, every box is full. Add up:

• the upper section, plus 35 if it reached 63,
• the lower section,
• 100 for each Five of a Kind bonus.

The highest total wins. A tie is a draw. In solo mode, there is no opponent: your total is recorded locally and you try to beat your best. A solid game usually lands somewhere between 200 and 300 points. Our hardest computer player averages about 246 points over a thousand test games.

Common variants

• No Joker rule. Some households let a second five of a kind go in any box with its normal value, and some don't award the 100-point bonus. We use the forced Joker rule and the bonus by default.
• Yacht (the older game). It has 12 boxes, no upper bonus, and a different points table. A Yacht (five of a kind) is worth 50, and straights often score a flat 30.
• Triple card. Players keep three columns at once, with the third column worth triple. It makes games longer and rewards planning.
• Multiplayer at the table. Any number of people can play by taking turns with one set of dice and a score card each.

Daily challenge

In the daily challenge everyone gets the same dice in the same order that day. Each roll always uses the next five dice from the day's sequence, even for dice you held, so your choices change your score but never the luck you are dealt. That makes it fair to compare scores with friends. Use the "Copy result" button at the end to share a plain-text summary.

Last updated 2026-10-17