How to play Zanzibar

Zanzibar is played with three dice and chips, and suits two to eight players. Each player starts with ten chips. The game has roots in European bars and is traditionally played for stakes, but works just as well with chips at the kitchen table.

Rolls rank as follows, from highest to lowest:

1. 1-2-3, known as zanzibar, is the highest roll.
2. Three of a kind, where 6-6-6 beats 5-5-5 and so on.
3. Ordinary rolls rank by points: a one counts 100, a six counts 60, and the dice 2 to 5 count face value. The roll 4-2-1 is worth 106 points, while 5-5-2 is worth only 12.

What matters is the order: zanzibar beats three of a kind, which beats everything else, and among ordinary rolls the highest points win.

The first player rolls the three dice up to three times and may stop at any point. The number of rolls the first player uses caps the rest of the round: if the opener uses two rolls, everyone else gets at most two.

The other players then try in turn to beat the leading roll. Once everyone has rolled, the round ends, and the player with the lowest roll pays chips to the winner: one chip for an ordinary roll, two for three of a kind and four for a zanzibar.

Play continues round by round, with a new opener each time (the loser of the previous round usually starts). Run out of chips and you are out; the last player holding chips wins. You can also agree on a fixed number of rounds and count chips at the end.

Point values and payment rates vary a lot from place to place, so agree on them before you start. Some play that the whole table pays the winner instead of just the loser, which makes the swings much faster.

If you like rolls that must be beaten, try Cee-lo or Mexican.

It is a tradition in many bar and tavern dice games: the seemingly worst roll gets the highest rank. It gives the game a fun twist, since a roll that looks like a loss suddenly means cheering.