Yatzy

Yatzy is the Scandinavian dice classic: five dice, three rolls a turn, and a scorecard of fifteen rows that each want a different shape: pairs, straights, a full house, five of a kind. After each roll you choose which dice to keep and which to shake again; after the third, you must write one row, even if the best you can write is a zero.

The quiet engine of the game is the upper section: score sixty-three or more across ones to sixes and a fifty-point bonus lands on your card. Play against the computer at three strengths, or open a table and send a friend the code. Each of you rolls on your own turn, and the same scorecard decides it.

Tap a die to hold it, then roll the rest. Anything you hold stays put for the rolls that remain. Before you commit to a row, the card shows what your dice would score in each one, so you can weigh a modest certainty against a better gamble without doing the arithmetic yourself. Deciding which row to spend is the real work of a turn. The strength you last played at, and your running record against the computer, stay in this browser.