Rolling and setting aside
Each turn starts with six dice. After every roll you must set aside at least one scoring die, then either roll the remaining dice again or bank the points you have built up this turn.
Farkle is a push-your-luck dice game. Roll six dice, set aside the ones that score, and decide whether to bank your points or risk them on another roll. First to 10,000 points wins.
Each turn starts with six dice. After every roll you must set aside at least one scoring die, then either roll the remaining dice again or bank the points you have built up this turn.
A single 1 is worth 100 and a single 5 is worth 50. Three of a kind scores the face value times 100, except three 1s which score 1,000. Four, five and six of a kind score 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000. A 1-to-6 straight or three pairs score 1,500, and two triplets score 2,500.
If a roll contains no scoring dice at all, that is a Farkle: you lose every point collected this turn and play passes to your opponent.
If all six dice end up scoring during a turn, you have hot dice. You may pick all six back up and keep rolling, adding to the same turn total.
Scoring is easiest to learn from real rolls. Roll 1-1-1-5-3-4 and you can keep the three 1s for 1,000 and the 5 for 50, setting aside four dice and re-rolling two with 1,050 banked for the turn. Roll 2-2-2-6-6-3 and only the three 2s score (200); the sixes and the three are dead. Roll 4-4-4-4-1-5 and you have four of a kind for 1,000 plus 150 for the 1 and 5 — all six dice score, so you have hot dice and pick up all six again. Roll 1-2-3-4-5-6 and the straight scores 1,500 on its own. Remember that dice only count in the roll they were thrown: two 5s kept on one roll and another 5 on the next are three single 5s (150), not three of a kind (500).
The single most important decision in Farkle is when to stop. With six dice the chance of farkling is only about 2.3%, so you should almost always roll. With five dice it is about 7.7%, with four dice about 15.7%, with three dice about 27.8%, with two dice about 44.4% and with one die 66.7%. A good rule of thumb: with three or fewer dice left, bank any turn total of 350 or more; with two dice left, bank anything over 250; with one die left, bank unless your total is tiny. Change gears when the scoreboard demands it — if an opponent is close to 10,000, you need to take more risk because a safe bank will not catch them.
You do not have to keep every scoring die. If you roll 1-5-5-2-3-6, keeping only the 1 leaves five dice to throw instead of three, and five dice score far more often. Strong players often keep a single 1 rather than a 1 and two 5s for exactly this reason. The exception is when keeping all of them gives you hot dice — six fresh dice are worth more than a few points of safety. Three 2s (200) are similarly a weak keep when you could hold a 1 and keep four dice live.
Farkle goes by many names: Zilch, Hot Dice, 10,000, Greed and Cosmic Wimpout's cousin Six Dice. Zilch usually scores three pairs at 1,500 and penalises three farkles in a row with minus 500. Greed often plays with five dice and a 300-point opener. Some families score four of a kind as double the triple, five of a kind as quadruple, and six of a kind as an instant win. Agree the scoring sheet before the first roll — most disputes come from mixed house rules, not from cheating.
Use one column per player and write each banked turn as a running total, not as separate numbers, so nobody has to add up a long list at the end. Mark the opening threshold beside a player's name until they reach it. When someone crosses 10,000, draw a line: every other player gets one last turn to beat that total. Our free Farkle score calculator does all of this on a phone and remembers the game if the screen locks.
Single 1 scores 100 and single 5 scores 50. Three of a kind is the face value times 100, except three 1s which score 1,000. Four of a kind is 1,000, five of a kind is 2,000 and six of a kind is 3,000. A 1-2-3-4-5-6 straight scores 1,500, three pairs score 1,500 and two triplets score 2,500. Twos, threes, fours and sixes score nothing on their own.
The minimum to get on the board is usually 500 in one turn, though many families play 1,000 or none at all. Some groups score a four-of-a-kind as double the three-of-a-kind value instead of a flat 1,000. Others allow a player to continue a turn that the previous player banked, and some play a final round once someone passes 10,000 so everyone gets one last chance.
You must set aside at least one scoring die every roll, and every die you set aside has to be part of a scoring combination. If a roll produces no scoring dice at all, that is a farkle and the entire turn total is lost. If all six dice end up set aside, you have hot dice and roll all six again, keeping the total so far.
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