Play Maxi Yatzy Online

What Is Maxi Yatzy?

Maxi Yatzy is Yatzy scaled up: six dice instead of five, twenty boxes instead of fifteen, a 100-point bonus in place of 50, and one rule that changes the whole feel of the game. Rolls you do not use are not wasted. Score after one throw and you bank two rolls; score after two and you bank one. Those saved rolls sit in a pool you can dip into on any later turn, so a lucky first throw in round three can pay for a six-throw hunt for Maxi Yatzy in round eighteen.

The extra die makes room for combinations five dice cannot hold. Three Pairs, Villa (two triples), Tower (four of a kind plus a pair) and the Full Straight 1-2-3-4-5-6 join the familiar pairs, kinds, straights and Full House. The sixth die also lowers the bar for the old combinations: two pairs turn up on more than half of all first throws, and a 1-5 straight is three and a half times as likely as with five dice.

It is a long game, twenty turns and typically twenty minutes solo, and it rewards planning more than any other member of the Yahtzee family. Fans of six-dice games such as Farkle and Ten Thousand will recognize the pleasure of a full fistful of dice; fans of five-dice scorecards will find a card where every box has a purpose.

A Short History

Maxi Yatzy is a Nordic extension of the public-domain Yatzy card. Like its parent it has no single documented inventor. It is sold as a boxed game and as score pads by Scandinavian publishers (the Finnish company Tactic prints a Swedish-language rule sheet for it), and it is a fixture of Swedish game shelves alongside standard Yatzy.

The Swedish sheet is the canonical one, and its rows are the ones used on this page: Ones through Sixes, then Par, Två par, Tre par, Tretal, Fyrtal, Femtal, Liten stege, Stor stege, Full stege, Kåk, Villa, Torn, Chans and Maxi Yatzy. “Kåk” is Full House, “Villa” is two triples (some sheets say “Hus,” and English sources sometimes translate it as Castle), and “Torn” is Tower. Two numbers vary between editions: the Full Straight is worth 21 on the Swedish sheet but 30 in some other versions, and the bonus threshold is 84 on modern sheets but 75 on some older ones. We use 21 and 84.

The saved-rolls rule (“sparade slag” in Swedish) is what makes Maxi Yatzy more than “Yatzy with a spare die.” Physical sets often include counters so you can keep track of banked throws; some scoring apps have quietly dropped the rule, but it is part of the standard printed rules and it is implemented in full here.

Maxi Yatzy Rules

Equipment

• Six six-sided dice
• A score sheet with twenty boxes: six upper, fourteen lower, plus a bonus line, totals and a row or counters for saved rolls
• A cup (optional)

Object

Fill all twenty boxes over twenty turns for the highest total. Every turn ends with a score or a zero written into one empty box.

How a Turn Works

1. Roll all six dice.
2. Hold any dice you want to keep. In the game above, tap or click a die to hold it; tap again to release it.
3. Roll again with the unheld dice, and roll a third time if you wish.
4. Spend saved rolls. If your three turn rolls are used and you have saved rolls in the bank, you may keep throwing, one saved roll per throw, holding dice as usual between throws.
5. Score in one empty box. If you scored after your first roll, add two rolls to your bank; after your second roll, add one. Only the turn’s own three rolls can be banked, never saved rolls you spent.

Saved rolls are lost at the end of the game, so plan to use them.

Scoring

Every combination is scored with the dice that make it up. A pair scores two dice, a Full House five, Villa and Tower six. Chance and the straights are the only boxes where the specific faces beyond the pattern do not matter.

Important edge cases, all handled by the game on this page:

• Different numbers are required for Two Pairs, Three Pairs, Full House, Villa and Tower. 4-4-4-4-1-2 is not Two Pairs; 5-5-5-5-5-5 is not a Tower.
• A bigger set can supply a smaller one. 6-6-6-6-5-5 scores 28 in Full House (three 6s and two 5s), 34 in Tower, 24 in Four of a Kind and 22 in Two Pairs. 3-3-3-5-5-5 scores 24 in Villa and 21 in Full House (three 5s plus two 3s).
• The sixth die is free in the Small and Large Straights. 1-2-3-4-5-5 is a Small Straight for 15.
• Six of a kind scores 100 in Maxi Yatzy and also qualifies for Five of a Kind (five dice), Four, Three, One Pair and the upper box.

The 100-Point Bonus

Reach 84 in the upper section and you add 100 points, the single largest item on the card. Eighty-four is four of each number, so pace is four of a face per box. Six dice make four of a kind far easier than with five: holding the most common face and using all three rolls, you make four alike about 49% of the time, versus 28% with five dice.

Worked Examples

• 6-6-6-6-2-2 on the first roll. Tower for 34, the maximum. Score it at once and bank two saved rolls. Alternatively Sixes for 24 plus the two saved rolls if you are chasing the bonus and Tower feels reachable later; most players take the 34.
• 3-3-3-5-5-5. Villa for 24. It is also 21 in Full House, 18 in Three of a Kind and 24 in Chance. Villa is the rarest of those boxes, so it gets the dice.
• 1-2-3-4-5-5 after one roll. Small Straight for 15 with two saved rolls, or hold 1-2-3-4-5 and roll one die at the 6 for a 21-point Full Straight (1 in 6 per throw, 31% over two throws). Early in the game, with Large Straight also open, rolling the spare die is reasonable because 2-3-4-5-6 plus a 1 or a 6 is a straight either way.
• 6-6-5-5-4-4. Three Pairs for 30, the maximum. It is also 22 in Two Pairs and 30 in Chance. Take Three Pairs.
• 2-2-2-2-2-6 with two rolls left. Hold the five 2s? Five of a Kind pays 10 and Maxi Yatzy 100, but 2s are the least valuable face. Rolling the 6 twice gives a 31% shot at 100 points. That is worth far more than anything else available, so yes, hold them and roll.
• 1-3-4-4-5-6 after three rolls, nothing fits. Chance scores 23, One Pair 8, Fours 8. Chance averages 21 for the whole game and 23 is above average, so Chance is a fair choice; if Ones is open and the bonus is already gone, a 1 in Ones keeps Chance for later.

The Odds

Six dice produce 6⁶ = 46,656 equally likely outcomes. The table gives exact single-roll probabilities for every lower box, computed by enumerating all 46,656 outcomes against the scoring rules above.

Over a three-roll turn, holding the most common face:

• Four of a kind: 48.6%.
• Five of a kind: 15.4%.
• Maxi Yatzy: 2.02%, about 1 in 50 turns. With two saved rolls added, the same chase runs to five throws and roughly doubles the chance.
• Small or Large Straight, holding every needed face: 43.7% by the third roll, against 19.7% with five dice.
• Full Straight: 19.7% by the third roll.
• Chance averages 21 (six dice average 3.5 each) and is capped at 36.

No published optimal-strategy figure for Maxi Yatzy exists that we could verify, so treat scores relatively. A simulated bot that holds the most common face, always uses three rolls, never banks a roll and takes the biggest immediate score averages about 225 and almost never earns the bonus. A player who protects the bonus and uses saved rolls should comfortably clear 300, and the 100-point bonus plus a Maxi Yatzy pushes games past 500.

Strategy

1. The bonus is four of each face, and six dice make that normal

At 84 the bonus needs four of every number. Holding the most common face across three rolls yields four alike in roughly half of all turns, and the upper boxes are the natural home for any turn that ends with four or five of a high face. Pace check: after Fours, Fives and Sixes you should be at or above 60.

2. Bank rolls when the first throw is already good

A first-throw Tower, Three Pairs or Full House is worth its points plus two saved rolls; that pair of rolls is roughly worth another good box later. The rule of thumb: if the first throw scores within a few points of the box’s maximum, score it and bank. If the second throw does, score it and bank one.

3. Spend saved rolls on the long shots

Saved rolls are most valuable where the base probability is low and the payoff is high: Maxi Yatzy (100), Full Straight (21), Villa (33 max) and Tower (34 max). Do not spend them turning a 12-point pair into a 14-point pair. Keeping two or three in reserve for the last few boxes is also insurance against being forced to scratch a big box.

4. Learn the ladder of kinds

Four 6s are 24 in Sixes, 24 in Four of a Kind, and the base of a 34-point Tower or a 100-point Maxi Yatzy. When you hold four of a high face, look at what is open before deciding whether to roll the other two: for Tower you want a pair (any pair scores; 6-6-6-6-1-1 is 26), for the bonus you want more of the same face.

5. Straights: hold the five, roll the spare

With five distinct faces in a row you already have a Small or Large Straight; the sixth die is a free roll at the Full Straight (1 in 6 per throw). With 2-3-4-5-6 the spare die makes a Full Straight on a 1 and a Small Straight is impossible, so it can only help. Only roll the spare when the straight you already hold is not your last open straight box.

6. Three Pairs is worth planning for

Three Pairs arrives on 3.9% of first throws but is easy to build: hold any two pairs and roll the other two dice for a third pair. It scores the sum of all six, so high pairs matter: 6-6-5-5-4-4 is the 30-point maximum, 1-1-2-2-3-3 is 12.

7. Chance is worth 21 and should hold at least that

Six dice average 21, so anything below 20 in Chance is a loss against expectation. Save the box for a throw of 25 or more, or for the emergency when every other box would be a zero.

8. Endgame: count the saved rolls, then the boxes

With five boxes left, add your saved rolls to your remaining turn rolls and ask which open boxes those throws can realistically fill. Fifteen throws across five turns is a different game from nine. Aim saved rolls at the box that is both open and valuable, usually the last straight or the last kind, and dump zeros into Ones or Two Pairs, never into Chance.

Common Mistakes

• Using all three rolls out of habit. A first-throw Villa scored immediately is worth Villa plus two future rolls. Rolling on “to see” wastes both.
• Scoring a 4+2 hand as Four of a Kind when Tower is open. 6-6-6-6-5-5 is 24 in Four of a Kind and 34 in Tower.
• Filling Small Straight with 1-2-3-4-5-6. That is a Full Straight for 21; the Small Straight can be made later with a spare die.
• Forgetting the sixth die in the straights. 1-2-3-4-5-3 is a Small Straight for 15, not a zero.
• Hoarding saved rolls to the final turn. Unused rolls vanish at game end. Spend them where they can convert.
• Treating 84 like 63. Three of each face leaves you 21 short. The bonus needs fours.

Variants and House Rules

• Full Straight for 30. Some editions pay 30 rather than 21. Agree in advance; 30 makes the spare-die roll much more attractive.
• Bonus at 75. Older sheets used 75. At 75 the bonus is roughly three-and-a-half of each face and becomes much easier.
• No saved rolls. Some apps and casual tables drop the rule. Without it the game is simply six-dice Yatzy and the “score early” strategy vanishes.
• Villa scored as a fixed value or renamed Castle/House. Naming varies; scoring as the sum of six is standard.
• Multiplayer. Two to six players alternate turns with one set of dice; highest total wins, and each player keeps a private bank of saved rolls.

If you want the five-dice original, play Yatzy; for the 1938 ancestor of all of them, try Yacht; for first-roll bonuses on a five-dice card, try Generala.

Glossary

• Saved roll (sparat slag): A turn roll you did not use, banked for a later turn.
• Villa: Two different three-of-a-kinds, six dice, sum of all six. Also called Hus or Castle.
• Tower (Torn): Four of one number plus a pair of another, sum of all six.
• Kåk: Swedish for Full House.
• Full Straight (Full stege): All six faces 1 through 6, 21 points.
• Pace: Four of each face scored so far, the track toward the 84-point bonus.

Play Maxi Yatzy Online on Dice.now

The game above deals six dice, three rolls per turn and the twenty-box Swedish card in its printed order, with the 100-point bonus at 84, the Full Straight at 21 and Maxi Yatzy at 100. Score before your third roll and the unused rolls go into the Saved Rolls counter in the status bar; once a turn’s three rolls are used, the roll button changes to “Use a Saved Roll” and spends one per throw. Every open box previews what your current dice would score, computed with only the dice that form the combination, so a 6-6-6-6-5-5 shows 34 in Tower and 28 in Full House at the same time. Tap dice to hold them, click a highlighted row to score, and your best total is kept on your device. Twenty boxes, six dice, and a bank of rolls to manage: roll the dice.