Play Tenzi Online

What Is Tenzi?

Tenzi is the fastest dice game there is. Every player has ten dice. On the word “Go,” everyone rolls all ten at once, picks a number, pulls out the dice that already show it, and re-rolls the rest — again and again, as fast as their hands allow — until all ten dice match. The first person to do it shouts “Tenzi!” and wins. There are no turns, no scorecards and no waiting. A full game takes about the time it takes to read this paragraph.

That simplicity is the whole design. Tenzi can be explained in the 30 seconds a toy store manager once demanded of its inventors, a five-year-old can win against an adult, and it produces the particular joy of ten dice rattling across a table while four people shout numbers at each other. It is the perfect opener before a longer game such as Yahtzee, and it sits naturally next to other loud, fast dice games like Bunco and Left Center Right.

On Dice.now, Tenzi is a solo race against the clock and against a computer opponent. Your score is your time.

A Short History of Tenzi

Tenzi was created by Kevin Carroll and Steve Mark, two friends from Cos Cob, Connecticut. According to the story told by their company, the two ran into each other while shopping after years out of touch, and a few months later Carroll handed Mark a bag of dice and said, “Let’s come up with a dice game.” Through October 2010 they built about two dozen prototypes and settled on the one rule that survived every play test: ten dice, one number, first to match them all.

Their first customer was a local shop. Celeste Vanderlip, the manager of HobbyTown in Fairfield, Connecticut, told them, “If you can tell me how to play your game in less than 30 seconds, I might be interested.” They could, she took the prototypes, and the store sold more than 300 copies over the next two months. Carroll and Mark formed Carma Games (Car-Ma, for Carroll and Mark) to produce it properly, and Tenzi reached specialty toy stores nationwide in 2011. The company never sold the game to a major publisher; instead it built a network of independent retailers, more than 4,000 of them by 2014, when it announced it had passed 500,000 copies sold. Along the way the game picked up a Best Toys for Kids award from the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association and a Best Toy award from the Learning Express chain.

Carma Games followed the original with an expansion deck, 77 Ways to Play Tenzi, and themed editions such as Slapzi and Itzi that swap dice for cards. The variants on that deck — Splitzi, Stealzi, Tenzi Tower, Target Tenzi, Team Tenzi, Mega Tenzi — have become part of the standard game at many tables, and two of them are built into the game above.

The game on this page is an independent fan re-creation of the public rules. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Carma Games.

Tenzi Rules

Equipment

• Ten six-sided dice per player. The retail box holds four sets of ten in different colors so that dice never get mixed up.
• A flat surface and, ideally, a tray or box lid to keep dice from flying off the table.
• A timer if you are playing solo. The game above has one built in.

Object of the Game

Be the first player to have all ten of your dice showing the same number.

How a Turn Works

There are no turns. Everyone plays at the same time, at their own pace.

1. Go. All players roll all ten of their dice at once.
2. Choose a number. Look at your roll and decide which number to collect. Most players take whichever number appears most often. Set those dice aside.
3. Re-roll the rest. Pick up every die that does not show your number and roll them again. Set aside any new matches.
4. Repeat. Keep rolling the non-matching dice as fast as you can. You may change your target number at any time, but you lose the dice you set aside if you do.
5. Tenzi! The moment all ten dice show your number, shout “Tenzi!” That player wins the round.

For a longer contest, play a series of rounds and count wins, or time each player and compare.

How Dice.now Scores It

Because the online game is a solo race, your score is your time in seconds, measured from the moment you press Start to the roll that completes the set. Lower is better. The variant you choose changes what “complete” means:

Ending the Game and Winning

At the table, the first “Tenzi!” wins. Online, the game ends when your set is complete; the overlay shows your time, the number of rolls, whether you beat the computer racer, and whether you set a new best time.

How to Score: Worked Examples

• First roll: 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, 5, 6, 2, 3, 4. Five 3s. Set them aside and roll the other five. This is a strong start: about 7.8% of first rolls contain five or more of one number.
• First roll: 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 3, 4. No number appears more than twice. It does not matter which pair you pick; hold either pair (choose the higher one if it helps you remember) and roll eight dice. About 6.8% of first rolls look like this.
• First roll: 6, 6, 6, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 5, 3. Four 2s beat three 6s. Take the 2s. Face value is irrelevant in Tenzi; only the count matters.
• You hold nine 4s and roll the last die four times without hitting a 4. That is normal. The last die takes six rolls on average and the whole game is usually decided by the last one or two dice. Keep rolling; do not switch numbers.
• Splitzi, first roll: 5, 5, 5, 5, 2, 2, 2, 6, 1, 3. Take 5 and 2. You already hold seven dice and need one more 5 and two more 2s. Note that if a fifth 5 turns up later it is not held, because each number is capped at five.
• Target Tenzi, you called 6 and roll 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 2. No 6s at all. This happens 16% of the time on the first roll (the chance that ten dice contain no 6 is (5/6)¹⁰ = 16.2%). Roll all ten again.

Probabilities and the Odds

Tenzi looks like pure chaos, but the mathematics is clean because each die is independent. A single die shows any particular number with probability 1/6 per roll, so a die that is not yet matched takes 6 rolls on average to come around. The game is the race to have all ten dice come around.

Target Tenzi (number fixed before rolling). Each die needs a geometric number of rolls with success chance 1/6, and the game ends when the slowest die is done. The chance of being finished within k rolls is (1 − (5/6)^k)¹⁰:

The expected number of rolls is 16.6.

Classic Tenzi (pick the most common face after roll one). Choosing after you see the dice gives a small but real head start, because the first roll usually contains three or four of something. In a 200,000-game simulation using that strategy:

• Average rolls to finish: 15.4 (1.2 rolls better than Target Tenzi).
• Finished within 10 rolls: 24.7%. Within 15: 58.9%. Within 20: 81.1%.
• The most common number on the first roll appears exactly three times in 52.9% of games, four times in 31.0%, five times in 7.8%, six or more in 1.4%, and only twice in 6.8%.
• All ten dice matching on the very first roll: 6 in 6¹⁰, or 1 in 10,077,696. It has surely happened somewhere; do not plan on it.

Splitzi. Two targets and a cap of five each: 10.9 rolls on average, so a Splitzi race is about 30% shorter.

Time. At the table, a competent adult rolls, sorts and re-rolls about once per second, so 15 rolls is 15 seconds. Online the computer racer rolls every 0.7 seconds and picks the most common face, which puts its typical finish between 9 and 13 seconds and its median at about 10.5. To beat it you need roughly 1.4 rolls per second, which is very achievable with the Roll button under your thumb or the Space bar.

Tenzi Strategy

Tenzi is 90% speed and 10% decisions, but the decisions are free points.

1. Take the most common number, always

The number that appears most often on your first roll needs the fewest additional matches. Four of a kind on the first roll saves you about 3 rolls compared with a pair. Ignore which number it is: 1s are as good as 6s.

2. Never switch numbers

Switching throws away every die you have collected. Even if you hold three 2s and then roll four 5s among the remaining seven, you would only be trading three for four, at the cost of a moment’s confusion. The math says stick.

3. Roll fast, sort faster

Physical Tenzi is won by hands, not heads. Keep your held dice in a tight row away from the rolling area, scoop the loose dice in one motion, and roll low across the table so nothing bounces off. Many experienced players roll straight from a cupped hand rather than a cup.

4. Use both hands and your peripheral vision

Sorting after each roll is where the seconds go. Learn to spot your number across ten dice at a glance, and pull matches with one hand while the other gathers the misses.

5. On Dice.now, keep your finger on the button

The clock starts when you press Start and includes the time you spend choosing a number, so pick with your first glance. After that, every roll is one press: the game locks matching dice for you, so there is nothing to sort. The Roll button keeps focus, which means the Space bar or Enter key rolls too.

6. In Splitzi, take the top two counts

Pick the two most common faces on the first roll. If three faces tie, any two will do. Remember the five-per-number cap: once you hold five of a number, extra dice of that number are re-rolled, so late in a Splitzi game you are effectively playing Target Tenzi for the second number.

7. In Target Tenzi, call anything

There is no best number to call before the roll; each is exactly as likely. Call the one you find easiest to see (many players say 6, because six pips are the most visually distinct on small dice).

8. Race the clock, not the table

Because the online game records your best time, the meaningful opponent is your own record. Play three or four rounds in a row; times drop quickly as the rhythm of Start-pick-roll-roll-roll settles in.

Common Mistakes

• Hesitating over the first roll. Two seconds of deliberation is 10% of a good game. Count, pick, go.
• Holding the wrong dice. In the excitement it is easy to pull a 6 when you are collecting 9s — or, more realistically, a 2 when you wanted 5s. Online this cannot happen; at the table it costs a whole roll.
• Re-rolling held dice. Keep your matches physically separate. A tray for held dice fixes this.
• Switching numbers mid-game. See Strategy tip 2.
• Forgetting to shout. At the table the game does not end until you say “Tenzi!” A silent finish can be overtaken by a louder one.

Variants and House Rules

The Tenzi box and the 77 Ways to Play Tenzi deck describe dozens of variants; these are the most played.

• Splitzi. Finish with five dice of one number and five of another. Built into the game above.
• Target Tenzi. Everyone calls their number before the first roll. Built into the game above.
• Tenzi Tower. Your ten matching dice must also be stacked in a single vertical tower before you can call Tenzi. Steady hands beat fast ones.
• Stealzi. When another player rolls the number you need, you may grab those dice from their pool and give them yours in exchange. Chaotic and hilarious with four players.
• Team Tenzi. Two players pool their dice and race to match all 20 to one number.
• Mega Tenzi. Twenty dice per player. Roughly twice as long and much louder.
• Timed Tenzi. Each player rolls alone against a stopwatch; lowest time wins. This is the mode Dice.now plays.
• Slot-machine Tenzi. Finish with the dice arranged 1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4 in a line, or any agreed pattern.
• Combined variants. The rules explicitly encourage mixing: Team Tenzi Tower, Target Splitzi, or Mega Tenzi Tower Splitzi Stealzi if you have the dice and the nerve.

For more speed and noise, try Bunco; for a fast game that adds a little decision-making, Farkle or Pig.

Glossary

• Tenzi!: The call that ends the game when all ten dice match.
• Set aside / hold / lock: Removing dice that show your number from the rolling pool. The online game locks them automatically.
• Target: The number you are collecting.
• Splitzi: The 5 + 5 variant.
• Racer: The computer opponent on this page, which rolls every 0.7 seconds.
• Best time: Your fastest completed game, stored in your browser.
• 77 Ways: The Carma Games expansion deck of variant cards.

Play Tenzi Online on Dice.now

The game at the top of this page is an original browser re-creation of Tenzi by Dice.now, not affiliated with Carma Games. Choose a variant — classic Tenzi, Target Tenzi or Splitzi — and decide whether to race the computer, then press Start. The clock begins immediately and all ten dice roll. Tap any die to make its number your target (two different dice in Splitzi), or simply press Roll again and the game picks your most common number for you. On every roll the dice that match are locked and highlighted, the rest re-roll, and the status bar shows your time to a tenth of a second and how many dice are locked. The computer racer rolls its own ten dice every 0.7 seconds using the most-common-number strategy, and the log tells you when it finishes. When your last die lands you see your time, your roll count, whether you beat the racer and whether it is a new best; the best time is stored only on your device. Ready? Press Start.