The Yahtzee end game is more than just getting to the finish line. In fact, the last few hands of the game are highly strategic. First, you’ll need to understand that with only a few score boxes left unfilled, you will need to aggressively try to make these specific hands. Second, because only a few scoring boxes are left open, you may on occasion end up with a hand that does not correspond to any of the available categories.

When this happens you may be forced to fill in a zero somewhere on the score card. Knowing the proper order in which you should fill categories with the zero is crucial to you winning the game. In identical situations, with one or two hands left to play, a skilled end game player can wind up with 10 or more extra points than an unskilled player. The difference is knowing the proper strategy relative to your position.

You are generally playing the end game with the last few unfilled categories in mind. At this point, instead of taking what the dice give to you as you had played in the opening game, it is necessary to force the issue. Desperate measures will sometimes become necessary. At this point, you will have to scramble as necessary to optimize your last few rolls.

For example, if you have only the Large Straight and 4 of a kind left to fill, and the first roll is 1-2-4-5-6 you should keep the 2-4-5-6 or the 1-2-4-5 and try for the Large Straight. Early in the game, you would never do this. But with time running out at the end of the game, it is now or never to fill the remaining open score boxes. Needing only one more number to make the Large Straight forces you to try for it at this point. Another example is only the Fours and Aces boxes are unfilled with no prior Yahtzee, and you roll 2-4-5-5-6. At this point you should keep only the 4. This is a horrible play early on in the game, but in the end game, you are desperately in need of 4’s and therefore the proper play.

As you can see, you may do a lot of things different in the end game then you would do in the beginning. Although it may seem like there is not a lot options involved, you would be surprised at how different strategies lead players on different paths. The point of this strategy is to learn the right path and then be able to take it so that you will most likely come out the victor of the games in which you play.