Farkle Rules

Also called Zonk, Zilch, 5000, 10000, Wimpout!, and Hot Dice.

Background
The rules below reflect how I learned it from the Christian Brothers. However, rules vary from family to family. There are professionally made games, web apps and iPhone apps which will have slight variations from what is described here. I'll describe a few of these variations at the end, but lets get started with this basic version.

How to Play
To win at Farkle you must be the player with the highest score above 5,000 points on the final round of play.

Each player takes turns rolling the dice. On your turn, you roll all six dice. A 1 or a 5, three of a kind, three pairs, or a six-dice straight earn points. You must select at least one scoring die. You can then pass and bank your points, or risk the points earned this turn and roll the remaining dice.

Scoring is based on selected dice in each roll. You cannot earn points by combining dice from different rolls.

If none of your dice rolled earn points, you get a Farkle. Three Farkles in a row and you lose 1,000 points.

You continue rolling until you either Pass or Farkle. Then the next player rolls the six dice. Play continues until it is your turn again.

Example: Your first rolls shows 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, and 6. You keep the 1 and the 5 for 150 points. You then opt to roll the remaining four dice. On that roll you get 3, 4, 4, and 5. You select the 5 and decide to Pass and bank your points.

The final round starts as soon as any player reaches 5,000 or more points.

To customize game play, choose Game Setup from the Options menu.

Scoring

Scoring is based on selected dice each roll. You cannot earn points by combining dice from different rolls. For example, if you roll a 5 (50 points), and then roll two 5s (100 points), you can't combine them to form three of a kind (500 points).

The 1 and 5 spot dice are special, as they are the only dice that can be scored outside of a combination (such as three of a kind).

Once someone has 5000, play continues until everyone has had the same number of chances (So remember who won the initial roll!)

Variations
This game is hundreds of years old and many, many, many variations exist. Some play to 10,000 points. Some require you to score 1,000 points on a single turn before you are "on the board," and at least 350 per turn.

Some count 4 of a kind as 1,000, 5 of a kind 2,000 and 6 of a kind as 3,000. Others double, so for example 4 threes would be 600, 5 threes would be 1200, and 6 threes would be 2,400. Some would award two groups of three as 2,500. Packet Farkle has 4 of a kinf worth 1000, 5 of a kind worth 2000, and six of a kind worth 3000, and two triplets worth 2500 (See a video of this variant here). Facebook Farkle (which can be easily hacked by using a cookie editer), score a triple pair as only 750 points, with redoubling for a 4 or more of a kind (4 2's=400, 5 2's=800, etc.).

Others allow "piggy-backing" off of the previous player's roll (See a video of this variant) For the purpose of learning, we won't use any of these in class, but feel free to try these variations with a friend.