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On-Line Yahtzee: Your Grandma Old Favorite Takes a Turn for the Tougher

Once upon a time, when a mouse and 256K were big deals in the computer world, gamers felt the spine-tingling thrill of solitaire, tetris, and missile command. Those simple games revolutionized personal computing like "pong" revolutionized arcade games. Now, on-line games proliferate at the speed of light, sales of computerized games outstrip sales of movies on DVD. In 2008, game-producers raked-in more than $10 billion, offering diversion to on-line counter-terrorists, medieval knights, and digital pets of all kinds. If role-playing and fantasy don't excite, you may create your virtual self and go clubbing. Or, a little more innocent, hundreds of "games of luck" invite you to take a chance. You can kick a Christmas tree, guess a potato's weight, or attempt robbing a grave.

In this high-tech universe, however, some of the old standards remain among the favorites. In this overwhelming array of on-line games of luck, Yahtzee remains one of the favorites. In the on-line game, you can roll the dice against other people or test your skill against the computer. Easy to learn and almost instantly addicting, on-line Yahtzee goes by the same rules and plays just like the home-set your Nana used to bring-out on rainy afternoons. Lots of internet sites offer instant play and free downloads.

All the ease and simplicity cleverly hide Yahtzee's mathematical sophistication and complexity. Experts claim it defies the rules of probability; and, despite high-powered mathematician's best efforts, just about everybody considers it mathematically unsolvable. The on-line versions, however, allow for "beginner's luck," because they allow for different degrees of difficulty. While you learn the basics of rolling, choosing, and keeping score, either the machine or the other on-line players will match your basic moves. As you become more proficient, the competition intensifies. And, when you become an expert, the computer is programmed to play with "optimal strategy."

Both skeptics and enthusiasts should study the academic discussions of Yahtzee. Cornell University provides mathematical formulae, so that you can calculate your odds as if you were doing your homework for Algebra 101. Cornell also offers a Yahtzee proficiency test-guaranteed to keep you humble. When you feel ready to dazzle your optimally nerdy friends, visit Loyola University of Maryland, where, with the help of theoretical mathematicians and computers, "The elementary combinatory and graph theoretic techniques used to compute the optimal strategy for Yahtzee are described."

Or you could just keep rolling the dice.

Be prepared. Your seemingly harmless Yahtzee fascination very quickly will become a habit; and, from a habit, it will develop into a magnificent obsession. Not that it's a bad thing, but simply that you should prepare to learn the subtleties of "optimal strategy," and you should develop a clever, sophisticated closing strategy. The hard-core players know exactly how to count their 1's and 2's; they have a sixth sense about when to draw for the "large straight"; and they know that any player will roll three or four full-houses in the course of a single game. The best players know how to minimize their losses, and they play their opponents' scorecards as skillfully as the Texas Hold'Em pros play the turn, flop, and river.

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