I really enjoy Cribbage, but nobody else in my family plays.
Whenever three or more of my family get together the game is something akin to Yahtzee, but only in that it is played with dice.
You need six (6) dice to play. 1's count for 10 points. 5's count for 5 points. The ante is one quarter. You can usually play all night for less than $2.
You roll all six dice and count up your points. Then pick up whatever dice you didn't score points with. And here comes the strategy, do you keep those 5's or do you pick them up hoping to roll 1's. You must save at least one 1 or 5 every roll. If you keep all of the 1's and 5's you are now rolling fewer dice. You get three rolls. If at the end of three rolls ALL of your dice are 1's or 5's you get to pick them up and roll all six again. If on any roll you don't get at least one 1 or 5 your turn is over.
You need 65 pts to open. After you are open you need at least 35 points to hold and take the points you've rolled so far. If you roll 50 pts but just have to roll that last single dice and don't get a 1 or a 5 you lose the points and your turn.
The only time that anything other than a 1 or a 5 counts is if you happen to roll three of a kind. In that case you score 10x's the value. Three 2's is 20 pts, three 4's is 40, three 1's would be 100 pts, etc.
Only when rolling all 6 dice:
If you roll a straight; 1,2,3,4,5, and 6 then you get 150 pts plus a quarter from everyone playing the game. If you roll three pair you get 75 pts. As both require six dice you of course get to roll all six dice again. If, rolling all six dice after either of these rolls you fail to roll at least one 1 or 5 you lose the points and your turn. If you were rolling after a straight and fail you also have to give back all those quarters you collected.
The game ends when somebody reaches over 1000 points. BUT WAIT, there is one final bit of strategy!! Because everybody gets one final turn after you have broken 1000 you want to be sure your score is out of reach of those chasing you. I have seen someone lose to the person in LAST place when she rolled two straights in a row followed by three 1's for a total of 400 pts. The leader had figured that nobody would score over 200 to catch him, and certainly not over 350 as my wife needed to do. Incidentally, those are the ONLY straights my wife has ever rolled playing this game!!
WARNINGS: This game is VERY addictive and can lead to staying up past your bedtime. And the people you are playing with begin to exhibit strange behaviours. They start to talk, beg, plead, and swear at their dice. People you never knew believed in such things start throwing hexes on each others dice. They will not allow ANYONE to touch their dice for fear of damaging the mojo. They begin to have imaginary helpers at the table. My brother Tom has a helper named Ralph. EVERYONE in my family hates Ralph because he has a REALLY annoying habit of coming through for Tom at the most inopportune times.
This game should carry a warning from the Surgeon General, not that anyone in my family would listen.
