When you are playing with optimal strategy you are maximizing your expect score. This is, if you could play the optimal strategy perfectly, you would obtain the highest possible average score per game. Learning these rules will help you achieve this each and every time, although the chances are slim that you will do this every game. It is far more likely that you will be known as a great Yahtzee player by your friends and family.

When you are playing with others your goal may be a little different than playing perfectly. Specifically your goal may be just to win the game. You may in fact, have little regard to your actual score, as long as it is higher than the score of your opponents. If you were to play a large number of games against your opponents, recording each score then adding them up to determine who was the winner, then the strategy presented would be the one to consider. However, the pay of a single game is subject to many fluctuations in outcome. For example, if you are lucky you may get a Yahtzee early on. If you are unlucky, you may fail to get a Large Straight or the Upper Section bonus, despite nearly perfect play.

It is a fact that when playing one or more opponents and trying to achieve the highest score in the group; your strategy is likely to deviate somewhat from the optimal strategy you have learned. There is a difference in your opponent’s styles, and ultimately their results will often force you to adopt a different strategy, one that maximizes your chance of achieving a new goal of simply catching up to your competitors.

In Yahtzee, there are times where you will naturally get exactly what you need no matter what you do. It is important that you don’t get too caught up in the excitement because this is rare. Most likely you will always be fighting for what you need, and therefore, the strategy you have learned will keep you ahead in the game. However, there are times where you will not roll anything of what you need and you will constantly be trying to keep up with your opponents. This is the time where you may just want to keep up with their progress and watch what they do. If you find yourself behind your opponents you need to depart from the basic strategy and aggressively try to make up the difference.

You don’t need to overcompensate for your bad dice dramatically if it is early in the game. If you continue to play according to basic strategy and secure the Upper Section bonus, it may become evident that your opponent will not achieve his bonus and you will have automatically taken a lead. However, if you are still behind in the later hands of the game, be prepared to do almost anything. No matter what you need, just go for it. Maybe you’ll get lucky and hit back to back Yahtzees or anything else you need to go on and win the game.