Farkle Rules and Scoring

What you need

Six dice, a pencil and something to keep score on: two or more players, though you can practise alone. The Farkle score sheet adds up the scores for you.

How a turn works

1. Throw all six dice.
2. After every throw, set aside one or more scoring dice. You must set aside at least one.
3. Then either bank the points from this turn and pass the dice, or throw the dice you have left to try for more.
4. If every die has scored, you have hot dice: throw all six again and keep adding to the turn. There is no limit to how many times this can happen.
5. If a throw has no scoring dice, you have farkled: every point from this turn is lost, and the turn passes to the next player.

Farkle scoring chart

These are the base scores listed in Karen South Arnold's Playing Grandma's Games (2000), which the game on this page uses. Each combination must come from a single throw: two 5s set aside earlier and a third 5 in a later throw are worth 50 each, not 500 together. When dice can be counted more than one way, the higher score counts; four 1s, for example, are worth more as three 1s and a single 1 (1,100) than as four of a kind (1,000).

A scoring example

You throw 1, 2, 3, 3, 3 and 5. You could set aside the three 3s (300) and throw three dice; the 1 alone (100) and throw five; the 5 alone (50) and throw five; or the 3s, the 1 and the 5 together (450) and throw the last die or bank. Which is best depends on the points you already have this turn, which is what the strategy page works out.

Winning: the final round

Scores add up from turn to turn. The usual target is 10,000. When a player reaches it, every other player gets one last turn to beat that score, and the highest total wins.

Common house rules

Farkle is a folk game, so scoring and play vary from family to family. Agree on these before you start:

• Three 1s worth 300 instead of 1,000, as in the boxed game Pocket Farkel.
• Different values for three pairs (750 to 2,000), a straight (1,000 to 3,000) or two triplets (2,500 or 3,000).
• Extra combinations: a short straight (1–5 or 2–6) for 500, a full house worth the triplet plus 250, or four of a kind with a pair for 1,500.
• Doubling: each die beyond three of a kind doubles the score instead of the fixed 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000.
• An opening score: you may not bank until you make 500 (or 1,000) in one turn. The game above can use the 500 rule.
• A minimum bank of 300 or 350 in every turn.
• A penalty, such as 500 points, for three farkles in a row.
• Five dice instead of six, sometimes called Hot Dice, where three pairs are impossible.

Other names, and Kingdom Come

The same game is played as Ten Thousand, Dix Mille, Greed, Zilch, Zonk and Hot Dice, among other names, and a boxed version has been sold as Pocket Farkel since 1996. The dice game in the video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a version of Farkle with its own scoring and special dice; the rules on this page are the traditional ones.