⛵ How to play Yacht

Easy rules, to read aloud 🔊

1. Roll all five dice.
2. Keep the dice you like and roll the others again.
3. You can roll up to three times.
4. Pick one box on the score sheet to fill.
5. Each box gets used only once.
6. After twelve turns, the biggest total wins.

The full rules

1. Each player has a column of twelve boxes on the score sheet. Take turns to the left.
2. On your turn, roll all five dice. Set aside any dice you want to keep and roll the rest again, up to three rolls in all. You may stop early.
3. After your last roll, choose one empty box and write a score in it. If your dice do not fit that box, you score zero there.
4. Ones through Sixes: add up only the dice showing that number. Three fours in the Fours box scores 12.
5. Full House (three of one number and two of another): add all five dice. Four of a Kind: add just the four matching dice.
6. Little Straight (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and Big Straight (2, 3, 4, 5, 6): 30 points each.
7. Choice: add all five dice, whatever they show. Yacht (all five the same): 50 points.
8. This is the 1938 game, so there is no bonus for the top six boxes. After twelve rounds, every box is full.

How to win: Add up each column after twelve rounds. The highest total wins.

Tips

• Save Choice for a turn when nothing else fits.
• Go for a Yacht only when you already have three or four the same.
• If a turn goes badly, a zero in Ones costs you the least.

What it practises

adding up to 50, counting by 2s to 6s, making choices, comparing totals.

Other ways to play

• Solo Yacht. Play alone and try to beat your best score. The most anyone can get is 297.
• The later boxed game. Yahtzee, a later game much like Yacht, adds a bonus for a big top-six total and changes how some boxes score.