Farkle rules

What it is

Farkle is a two-player push-your-luck dice game. You roll six dice, set aside the ones that score, and then choose: bank what you have, or re-roll the rest for more. Roll dice that score nothing and you farkle — the whole turn's points vanish and it passes to your opponent. The entire game is that one decision, repeated. It is the bar and family-kitchen dice game known variously as Zilch, Ten Thousand and Greed. This page describes the game as it is played at jpgames.app.

What you roll with

Six ordinary six-sided dice. There is no board and nothing is hidden — both players see every roll.

What the dice are worth

Only some dice score. Everything else is worthless.

Four, five or six of a kind multiply the triple. Four of a kind is worth twice the three-of-a-kind value, five of a kind three times, and six of a kind four times. So six 1s is 4,000, and six 2s is 800.

Only 1s and 5s score on their own. A lone 3 is worth nothing, and a pair of 3s is worth nothing — you need three of them.

The straight and three pairs both require all six dice and are checked first, since they beat what the individual dice would be worth.

Play

1. Roll all six dice.
2. Set aside at least one scoring die. You choose which — you do not have to keep everything that scores, and which dice you keep changes what you can roll next.
3. Bank or roll on. Banking adds the turn's points to your score and ends your turn. Rolling again risks the lot.
4. If a roll produces no scoring dice at all, you farkle. The turn ends immediately and you score nothing for it, however much you had accumulated.

Hot dice. If every one of your six dice ends up scoring, you may pick all six up and roll again, keeping the points you have banked so far in the turn. A hot streak is how the very large turns happen — and how the very painful farkles happen.

Scoring

Points banked are added to your running total. Points lost to a farkle are simply gone; your score never goes down.

The decision at the heart of every turn is the same. With 350 on the table and two dice left, rolling again wins about two-thirds of the time and loses 350 the rest. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on the score.

Ending the game

First player to the target wins. The default is 10,000.

There is no last-turn equaliser — the game ends the moment somebody banks past the target.

Variants we implement

1. Standard Farkle, which is what this page describes.
2. Target score — 10,000 by default.
3. Get on the board — an optional toggle, off by default. With it on, your first banked turn must be worth at least 500 points or it does not count and you score nothing. It makes the opening of the game considerably more aggressive, because a cautious 150 is worth exactly as much as a farkle.

Where we differ from the common rules

1. Two players only. Bots fill the other seat.
2. No 1,000-point single-die rules. Some tables score a lone 1 as 1,000 in certain positions; here a single 1 is always 100.
3. No four-of-a-kind-plus-a-pair, no two triplets bonus, and no "full house" category. The table above is the complete list.
4. No stealing or piggybacking. You cannot continue an opponent's farkled turn or take over their accumulated points.
5. No final round. When somebody passes the target the game is over immediately; the opponent does not get a matching last turn.
6. Three pairs is always 1,500, including when the three pairs happen to be three of a kind twice over.

Ready to play? Start a Farkle table — a bot fills the other seat, so a game starts whenever you do.

For the wider game, including the house rules above that we do not implement, see Farkle on Wikipedia.

Common questions

What is a farkle?

A roll that produces no scoring dice at all. When it happens, every point you had accumulated that turn is lost and play passes to your opponent.

What scores in Farkle?

Single 1s are 100 and single 5s are 50. Three of a kind scores 1,000 for 1s and 100 times the face for everything else. A 1-2-3-4-5-6 straight and three pairs are each 1,500. Nothing else scores.

What are hot dice in Farkle?

When all six of your dice have scored, you may pick them all up and roll again while keeping the points from the turn so far. There is no limit to how many times it can happen in one turn.

Do you have to keep every scoring die in Farkle?

No. You must set aside at least one scoring die each roll, but you choose which — and keeping fewer dice aside means more dice to roll, which is often the better gamble.

How many points do you need to win Farkle?

10,000. The game ends as soon as somebody banks past it, and the other player does not get a final turn.