How to play Triple Yahtzee

Triple Yahtzee is played with five dice and a score card that gives each player three columns side by side: a single, a double and a triple column. If you do not have a printed pad, just draw the thirteen usual Yahtzee rows with three columns next to them. The game works for one to six players.

A turn works exactly like in regular Yahtzee: roll five dice, keep what you like and reroll the rest, up to two more times. Then enter the result in an open box. You choose both the row and the column, and every box can only be used once.

With thirteen rows and three columns each player has 39 boxes to fill, so a full game takes about three times as long as ordinary Yahtzee.

You always write the actual dice score in the box, no matter which column it sits in. The multipliers only come into play at the end: the first column counts at face value, the second column is doubled and the third is tripled.

The rows are the standard Yahtzee categories: ones to sixes in the upper section, then three of a kind, four of a kind, full house, small straight, large straight, chance and yahtzee. Each column has its own upper section and earns a 35 point bonus when its ones to sixes add up to at least 63. The bonus is part of the column total, so it gets multiplied along with everything else.

Big scores belong in the triple column. A yahtzee placed there is worth 150 points in the final count, against 50 in the single column. When you have to take a zero, put it in the single column, where it hurts the least.

The upper section deserves attention too: a bonus in the triple column is worth 105 points at the end and is one of the biggest single swings in the game.

When all 39 boxes are filled, each player totals their columns, doubles the second, triples the third and adds everything together. The highest grand total wins. Final scores usually end up several times higher than in a normal game of Yahtzee.

Some groups require each row to be filled from left to right, so the single column must be used before the double and the triple. Others keep the extra yahtzee bonus from the base game, where a second or third yahtzee earns 100 bonus points.

If you want something shorter, a single-column game of Yatzy or Yahtzee is the quicker choice.

Yes. Draw three columns next to each other on one sheet, or use three separate sheets marked single, double and triple. The only extra work is multiplying the column totals when the game is scored.