Sometimes described as poker with dice, Yahtzee is an immensely popular game. Its manufacturer, Hasbro, claims that as many as 100 million people worldwide play the game regularly.
Yahtzee involves rolling five dice with the aim of obtaining favorable scoring combinations. For example, rolling five of a kind scores 50 points, whereas rolling three of kind and a pair (a full house) scores 25 points.
Now, Phil Woodward of Pfizer Global Research and Development in England has solved the game—computing all of the more than 1 trillion possible outcomes and working out optimal playing strategies. His results appear in the current issue of Chance.