You Can Play with Real Dice?

Author's Rating:

Pros: fun, helps develop math skills

Cons: easy to lose dice (but they are easily replaceable)

The Bottom Line: 
Games that help develop math skills under the guise of fun and frolic are hard to come by. Yahtzee does an excellent job in both areas. I highly recommend it.

Author's Review
The first time I stumbled upon some people playing Yahtzee with real dice I was startled. To me, Yahtzee was this cool game I made my dad buy me for my old TI computer. It was brightly colored pixels on the television set (also known as the monitor), cool sound effects, and a computer opponent who alway seemed to get five of a kind on the last roll of every game. You gotta hate computer opponents that cheat.

So there I was, a freshman in college, stunned to see people playing an analog version of a game I always enjoyed playing. Apparently it had been around forever, although I never saw it in any of the toy stores I frequented. Who knew?

Gameplay

Yahtzee is a simple dice game. You roll five dice trying to make set combinations of numbers. After a roll you can either score a hand or select some of the dice to keep and re-roll the others. Again you can chose to score the hand or select dice to keep and then re-roll. After the third roll you must score the hand.

What does scoring the hand mean? The yahtzee score card starts with twelve available slots. After each hand you must use a slot, adding points earned from that slot to your total. Each slot uses a different algorithm for determining the points you get when you place a hand there, and can only be used once. The twelve slots are:

Ones: yields one point for each one rolled.

Twos: yields two points for each two rolled.

Threes: yields three points for each three rolled.

Fours: yields four points for each four rolled.

Fives: yields five points for each five rolled.

Six: yields six points for each six rolled.

Three of a Kind: yields the sum of the values of all dice as long as the hand includes three dice with the same value. Otherwise no points are awarded.

Four of a Kind: yields the sum of the values of all dice as long as the hand includes four dice with the same value. Otherwise no points are awarded.

Full House: yields 25 points as long as the hand includes three dice with the same value and two dice with a (usually) different same value. Otherwise no points are awarded.

Small Straight: yields 30 points if you get four dice in consecutive numerical order. Otherwise no points are awarded.

Large Straight: yields 30 points if you get five dice in consecutive numerical order. Otherwise no points are awarded.

Yahtzee: yields 50 points if you roll five dice with the same numerical value. Otherwise no points are awarded.

Chance: yields the sum of the values of all dice regardless of the hand.

In addition you can get a 35 point bonus if you score 63 or more points in the One-Six slot (63 points corresponds to 3 die of each value in each slot). You can also score 100 point bonuses for rolling additional Yahtzees if and only if you scored your first five of a kind in the Yahtzee slot. This 100 points is in addition to whatever points it earns in the slot you place it in.

Yahtzee as a Math Tool

Yahtzee is an excellent game for honing math skills. It teaches everything from simple addition to basic multiplication to probability.

Younger children can practice addition by adding the values of the dice together and by adding together all of the hand scores at the end of the game.

They can practice multiplication by scoring hands with multiple dice of the same value. Yahtzee also helps them understand the relationship between addition and multiplication. Try having your kids calculate the value of the same hand using both addition and multiplication.

Older children can learn quite a lot about probability as they learn which dice to hold and which to roll in various situations. Ask them to explain why they are holding specific dice and what hands they are trying to make.

It's Educational So It Can't Be Fun

Not true. Yahtzee is a lot of fun. Like many card games it takes mix of luck and skill to win. If you enjoy card games you will most likely have fun playing Yahtzee.

I also find myself enjoying the sound of the game, namely the sound of the dice clanking together and of them rolling around on a table. It's a very comforting sound.

Summing Up

Yahtzee is a fun game that helps develop math skills. I recommend sitting down and playing a game or two today.