Play Yacht Online

What Is Yacht?

Yacht is the plain-spoken ancestor of Yahtzee. Five dice, three rolls, and a card of twelve categories, each usable once: the six number boxes, Full House, Four of a Kind, two straights, a free Choice box and the 50-point Yacht for five of a kind. There is no upper bonus, no Three of a Kind, no flexible four-die straight and no bonus for a second Yacht. Twelve turns and the game is over.

Because it strips away every later embellishment, Yacht is the cleanest way to see what the “roll, hold, reroll, score” mechanic is really about. Every box scores what the dice show, the two exact straights and the Yacht are the only fixed prizes, and with no bonus to chase the number boxes are simply what you make of them. It plays fast, about ten minutes solo, and the highest possible score is a compact 297.

If Yacht looks bare next to Yahtzee, that is the point: play it once and the reasons behind Yahtzee’s bonus, its Three of a Kind and its four-die Small Straight become obvious. The same family includes Scandinavian Yatzy, Latin American Generala, the colored-dice game Kismet and the head-to-head Dice Poker.

A Short History

Yacht is a public-domain game. Its first known appearance in print is in The Complete Book of Games by Clement Wood and Gloria Goddard, published by Halcyon House in New York in 1938. The game was already a synthesis: English Poker Dice supplied the idea of scoring dice as poker hands, and the Latin American Generala supplied five dice, a fixed set of categories and a big score for five of a kind. Yacht is also a contemporary of Crag, a three-dice game with a similar category sheet, and of Cheerio, a close variant. A widely repeated story has the game invented in the 1920s by card players aboard a yacht, which would explain the name; we have not found a primary source for it, so treat it as folklore.

The link to Yahtzee is direct. In the mid-1950s the toy entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe was asked by a Canadian couple to produce sets of their “yacht game.” Lowe bought the rights, reworked the scorecard and trademarked the result as Yahtzee in 1956. His changes are precisely the features Yacht lacks: an upper-section bonus (35 at 63), a Three of a Kind box, a Small Straight of any four consecutive dice, a Large Straight of any five, a flat 25 for Full House, and the 100-point bonus for extra Yahtzees. Milton Bradley bought Lowe’s company in 1973, Hasbro bought Milton Bradley in 1984, and Yahtzee remains a trademark to this day, while Yacht remains free for anyone to publish, teach or program.

Yacht never disappeared. It survives in game compendiums, on printable score sheets, and in a family of near-identical folk games, including Yot and Cheerio, that vary only the straight scores.

Yacht Rules

Equipment

• Five six-sided dice
• A score sheet with twelve boxes and a total line
• A cup to roll from (optional)

Object

Score the most points over twelve turns. On each turn you must write a score, or a zero, into one empty box. When all twelve boxes are filled, add them up.

How a Turn Works

1. Roll all five dice.
2. Hold any dice you like. In the game above, tap or click a die to hold it, and tap again to release it.
3. Roll the rest a second time, and a third time if you wish. Holds can be changed before each roll.
4. Score in one empty box. If nothing fits, enter a zero somewhere.

You may score after any roll; unused rolls are lost.

Scoring

The twelve categories, as given in the original rules and used on this page:

There is no upper bonus. The number boxes total at most 105 and typically far less.

Two rulings from the original game deserve emphasis:

• A Yacht is not a Full House. 4-4-4-4-4 scores zero in Full House because it does not contain two different numbers.
• A Yacht may be scored in Four of a Kind, but only four dice count: 4-4-4-4-4 scores 16 there, and 6-6-6-6-2 scores 24, not 26.

The Straights

Both straights are exact five-die sequences. 1-2-3-4-5 is the Little Straight and 2-3-4-5-6 the Big Straight; 1-2-3-4-6 is neither. At 30 points each they are, after the Yacht, the most valuable boxes on the card, and because they pay the same, there is no reason to prefer one over the other.

Worked Examples

• 3-3-3-2-2. Full House for 13, Threes for 9, Choice for 13. A 13-point Full House is poor (the box averages 17.5 when it hits and maxes at 28), but on the last roll of a late turn it is still the right box because Full House is harder to refill than Choice.
• 6-6-6-6-2 with one roll left. Four of a Kind pays 24 now; Sixes pays 24 now. Rolling the 2 gives a 1 in 6 chance of a 50-point Yacht and cannot lose either 24. Roll it.
• 2-3-4-5-6. Big Straight for 30. It is also 20 in Choice; the straight is worth half again as much and far rarer. Score it.
• 1-2-3-4-4 after one roll. Hold 1-2-3-4 and roll one die at the 5. Over two rolls that lands about 31% of the time for 30 points. If it misses, Fours or Choice absorb the turn.
• 5-5-5-5-5. Yacht for 50. If the Yacht box is filled, Fives (25) beats Four of a Kind (20), and Full House is zero.
• 1-1-3-4-6 after three rolls. Nothing fits. Choice would take 15, below its long-run value of about 23 under good play. Ones (2) or Twos (0) are the cheap scratches; scratching the Yacht box is also reasonable if it is late and the number boxes are gone.

The Odds

Five dice give 6⁵ = 7,776 equally likely outcomes. The single-roll figures below come from enumerating all 7,776 outcomes against the scoring rules above; the three-roll figures come from an exact calculation that holds every useful die after each throw.

“Played alone” means the average score you get from a fresh turn when that box is the only one left and you play the three rolls purely for it; the Sixes figure (12.64) is six times the expected 2.11 sixes you hold after three rolls of chasing them, and the other number boxes scale down from it (Fives 10.5, Fours 8.4, Threes 6.3, Twos 4.2, Ones 2.1).

We also solved the whole solitaire game exactly. With 4,096 possible states of the card and no bonus to track, an optimal player who maximizes expected final score averages 166.96 points per twelve-turn game. Two comparison points make that number concrete: a simulated bot that holds the most common face, always rolls three times and always takes the largest immediate score averages 112.5, and the theoretical ceiling is 297. Skill, in other words, is worth about 55 points a game, and even perfect play scores well under 60% of the maximum.

Strategy

1. Forget the bonus; count the box

With no upper bonus, Ones and Twos are simply the two lowest-value boxes on the card, worth about 2 and 4 points on average. They are the natural places to scratch. Do not “keep pace” the way you would in Yahtzee; a 6 in Sixes on turn two is a poor score, not a disaster, and a 3 in Ones is nearly the box’s full value.

2. Choice is the biggest box in the game

Played for on purpose, Choice is worth about 23 points, more than any number box and more than either straight’s expected value. Hold 5s and 6s, reroll everything under 4, and only write Choice when the total is 22 or better, or when the alternative is a zero in a good box. Never dump a 14 in Choice in the first half of the game.

3. The straights are where games are won

Each straight is 30 points and hits about 20% of the time when chased for a full turn. The trick is that both straights share 2-3-4-5, and a first roll containing four different faces from 1 to 6 is a straight draw. Hold the run, roll the odd die, and remember that with 2-3-4-5 in hand both a 1 and a 6 finish a straight, giving two outs per die instead of one.

4. Hold high sets, roll for the Yacht from four

Three or four 5s or 6s serve every box on the card: the number box, Four of a Kind (which counts only the four dice, so high faces matter more than usual), Full House and Choice. With four of a kind already in hand and Yacht open, rolling the fifth die costs nothing and pays 50 one time in six.

5. Treat Four of a Kind as a Sixes box

Because only four dice count, Four of a Kind is worth 4 times the face. 6-6-6-6 is 24; 2-2-2-2 is 8. If you make four low dice, the number box often pays the same or more, so save Four of a Kind for a high set and scratch it late if necessary.

6. Full House: take it at 20 or more

A Full House of 6s and 5s is 28; one of 1s and 2s is 7. Because the box is a sum, low Full Houses are not worth much more than the same dice in a number box, and with two rolls left you can usually improve. Take a Full House of 20 or more without hesitation; below 15, look for something better unless it is late.

7. Scratch in the right order

Late in the game the expected values tell you where to put a zero: Ones (about 2), Twos (about 4), Yacht (about 2 with one turn left), then Four of a Kind (about 5), then the straights (about 6 each). Never scratch Choice while any number box is open.

8. Play short turns when the dice are good

With no saved-roll rule there is nothing to gain from stopping early except safety, but there is real value in it: a first-roll Big Straight or a 27-point Choice should be scored, not rerolled. Three rolls is a limit, not a quota.

Common Mistakes

• Scoring Four of a Kind with all five dice. Only the four matching dice count. The game above previews the correct value.
• Writing a Yacht in Full House. It scores zero there. Use the Yacht box, or the number box if Yacht is filled.
• Using Choice early. Choice is worth 23 points played properly and is your last-turn safety net.
• Chasing the bonus that does not exist. Filling Fours with 12 “to stay on pace” is pointless here.
• Breaking 2-3-4-5 to hold a pair. Two straights at 30 apiece beat almost any pair-based plan.

Variants and House Rules

• Straight values. The original 1938 rules are the source of most disagreement. Common alternatives are Little Straight 15 and Big Straight 30, both straights 20, or both scoring the sum of the dice. Thirty and 30 is the most common modern reading and the one we use.
• Cheerio. A near-identical variant that adds Three of a Kind in some printings and scores its straights differently.
• Yot. Another folk name for essentially the same card.
• Generala. The Latin American cousin, with ten to eleven boxes, a bonus for combinations made on the first roll, and a served Generala that ends the game instantly.
• Yahtzee. Lowe’s 1956 expansion: 13 boxes, upper bonus, Three of a Kind, flexible straights, Yahtzee bonuses and the Joker rule.
• Yatzy. The Scandinavian branch: 15 boxes with pairs, sum-scored Full House, exact straights worth 15 and 20, and a 50-point bonus.
• Kismet. A 1964 commercial variant with colored dice and flush categories.

For the six-dice extreme of the family, try Maxi Yatzy; for four-column planning, Yamb.

Glossary

• Yacht: Five of a kind, 50 points; also the name of the game.
• Little Straight / Big Straight: Exactly 1-2-3-4-5 and 2-3-4-5-6, 30 points each here.
• Choice: The free box that scores the sum of all five dice.
• Hold: Keeping a die out of the next roll.
• Scratch: Writing a zero in a box on purpose.
• Public domain: No one owns the rules or the name, unlike the trademarked Yahtzee.

Play Yacht Online on Dice.now

The game at the top of this page is solitaire Yacht by the 1938 rules: five dice, three rolls per turn, twelve boxes and no upper bonus. Both straights pay 30, Four of a Kind counts only the four matching dice, a Yacht scores 50 in its own box and zero in Full House, and Choice takes the sum of all five. Tap a die to hold it, watch the live preview on every open box, and click a highlighted row to score. The status bar shows your roll, round, running total and best score, which is saved on your device; the end-of-game rating compares your total with the 166.96 points that perfect play averages. Twelve turns to 297: roll the dice.