Yacht

How to play Yacht

Roll five dice up to three times a turn and fill your scorecard: thirteen boxes, highest total wins.

Goal

Score the most points over thirteen rounds by filling every box on your scorecard.

Setup

Two to six players, one scorecard each. Turn order is shuffled every game. Everyone can see every card and every roll.

Taking a turn

Tap Roll to throw all five dice. You may roll again up to twice more, three rolls in all. After any roll you can stop and score.

Keeping dice

Between rolls, tap a die to keep it (it is marked Held); tap it again to let it go. Roll again and only the dice you did not keep are thrown. You can keep different dice on each roll.

Scoring

Every turn ends with scoring your dice in one open box: tap the box, then Score. Each box can be used only once, and if your dice fit nowhere useful you must still pick a box and take a zero.

Upper section

Ones, Twos, Threes, Fours, Fives and Sixes score the total of the dice showing that number. If these six boxes add up to 63 or more — three of every number — you earn a 35-point bonus.

Lower section

Three of a Kind and Four of a Kind score the total of all five dice. Full House (three of one number and two of another) scores 25, a Small Straight (four in a row) 30 and a Large Straight (five in a row) 40. Yacht — all five dice the same — scores 50. Chance takes any roll and scores its total.

Extra Yachts

With the Yacht bonus on (the standard rule), every Yacht after the first earns 100 bonus points, as long as your Yacht box holds 50 — none if you zeroed it. It is then a joker: it must go in the matching upper box if that is open; otherwise in any open lower box, where Full House and the straights score their full value; and only if those are full, as a zero in an open upper box. With the bonus off, an extra Yacht simply scores where it fits.

Winning

After thirteen rounds every card is full. Add up the upper section, its bonus, the lower section and any Yacht bonuses: the highest total wins. On a tie, the player who went earlier in the turn order takes it.

Resigning

Forfeiting takes you and your scorecard out of the game. With two players that hands your opponent the win; with more, everyone else plays on. Leaving a game in progress does the same.

These are the rules Piece of Cake plays, word for word: the same rulesheet is in the app under Help → Yacht. Every roll, deal and move is checked on our servers, so nobody can bend them.

Other dice games in the same subscription: Farkle (2–6 players, about 15–30 minutes).