The Yahtzee Game

It was a little over 50 years ago when one of the world’s best games was invented. Yahtzee started out as nothing more than a simple game played between friends, but has now grown to one of the most popular games in the world.

Yahtzee is amazingly simple and yet complex at the same time. The premise is very straightforward. You have five dice in which to roll certain hands that will garner you a score on a score card. These dice need to be made of certain orders or amounts of numbers set up like poker hands. There is a great deal of strategy to Yahtzee, but before you learn the strategy you need to learn the basic rules.

Anyone can play Yahtzee because of the easiness in learning the game. The overall object is to achieve the highest score in 13 hands. Each hand consists of a roll of five dice, a second re-roll, and then a third re-rolls. As the hands are each finished you take the score that you get and record it on a special score card that has an Upper Section and a Lower Section. Each combination of rolls gives the player a certain number of points, and depending on what you rolled, the score will be noted either in the Upper Section or the Lower Section.

The Upper Section is made up of boxes of numbers. You have your Ones, Twos, Threes, Fours, Fives, and Sixes, as well as a bonus box. Your goal is to fill in as much of these numbers as possible. For example, you want to get as many Sixes as possible to get the highest score. If you get 63 points in total you get a 35 point bonus. The Lower Section is made up of 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, Full House, Small Straight, Large Straight, Yahtzee and Chance. Each one has a certain number of points attached to it.

The rules are as follows. You roll your five dice. After looking at the dice you decide if you want to keep any of the dice that you see, and re-roll the rest of them. You have a huge amount of flexibility as to which of the dice you keep, if any, and which you want to re-roll. When it comes to re-rolls there are two subsequent rules. You can either keep any of the dice you want before you re-roll, or you can keep all of the dice and stop at any point. You do not need to re-roll if at any time you get the hand that you are looking for.

For example, if you roll a 3-4-4-5-6 on your first roll you may decide that all you need is the Small Straight so you do not roll any more. However, if you need a Large Straight, you may put the 4 back into the cup and re-roll two more times to see if you can get the Large Straight. It is not mandatory to use all three dice rolls, but if you need to then you have that option. To reiterate, you can stop after the initial roll, the second roll, or you may continue till you have exhausted all three rolls.

Essentially that is the entire game. Your whole premise is to make the hands that correspond with the scorecard. The more hands you make, the more points you get. At the end of the game you tally up the points and whoever has the most points wins.

Rummikub Game

Rummikub is one of the most popular games in the world. It is played with tiles and has many variations. The game combines luck but also the player skills and that's what makes it so interesting.

Rummikub is a very popular classic game that combines luck and player skills. This fast moving game provides hours of fascinating play that brings many families and friends together. Rummikub is a unique game that brings together some of the most popular features of a number of well-known games such as Mahjongg, Dominoes, Gin Rummy, Kalooki and even chess. Rummikub is a game that holds the attention of the people playing stimulates your imagination and challenges your wits, all while having a great time playing it.

There are three basic games that can be played with the Rummikub set. This variety means that the whole family can play Rummikub, either to teach the children one of the basic variations, or you can play amongst adults to really challenge your intellect. The easiest of the three games can be learned in just few minutes, and will eventually lead the way into the more intriguing and complex versions. One of the best things about the Rummikub game is that you can tailor any game to meet the needs of the people playing it. That means you can play with 2 people or 4 people, it doesn’t matter which because you can set your own table rules, as long as all other players agrees to them in advance.

Rummikub is played with tiles which are arranged and rearranged on racks and on the table to for winning combinations. The tiles are made of special plastic composition that makes them unbreakable and impossible to “mark” making this game completely cheat proof. They are
heavy, making it a popular outdoor game because they will not blow away on a breezy day. You can play on a picnic table, at the beach, or even on a boat, which is just one of the many reasons this game has become as popular as it has.

Rummikub is an international game that was conceived about 70 years ago in Romania, but has gained in popularity all over the world. Now it has become quite a classic game, with people continuing to buy it and play it on the regular board version or play Rummikub online against people around the world in the internet. The appeal of the game makes it contagious among “newbie’s” and almost addictive to the people who play Rummikub all the time.

Backgammon early game strategy

In backgammon you need to be able to alter your play in a blink. Occasionally you will have to restrain yourself from attacking and build your game, other times you'll need to attack full steam. In the very beginning of the game you need to be aggressive, fast and straightforward. If you can reach your early game targets it'll help you a lot later on.

In backgammon you need to be able to alter your play in a blink. Occasionally you will have to restrain yourself from attacking and build your game, other times you'll need to attack full steam. In the very beginning of the game you need to be aggressive, fast and straightforward. If you can reach your early game targets it'll help you a lot later.

<b>The early game targets</b>

<b>1. Make points in the homeboard</b>
There are two reasons why this is important. First, it will mess your upponent's game by limiting his chances to enter from the bar if you hit his checker. If you make to additional points his chances are much worse to get back to the game than if you would have only the six-point. Second, by making points in your home board also means that you those checkers are already ready for bearing off when the time comes.

Please remember that some points are more important than others. If you maneuver your checkers to the edge of the board or very close to it you limit yourself as to which checkers you can move. On your home board the most important points are the 5-point, then 6 and 4-point and then the 3-point in this order.

If you are unable to make points in your homeboard, make points as near to the homeboard as possible. If you manage to block points 7 through 12 you'll see how difficult it is for your opponent to escape his back checkers. In addition, making any points between 7 and 12 are excellent storage points for bringing the checkers in to your home board.

<b>2. Escape your back men</b>
While you are attacking and building points in and near your home board you shouldn't forget about your back men. If you do, a few turns later they might've got blocked or the distance to the rest of your checkers could be very long and therefore the escape can become a very risky one and could easily cost you the game. Therefore, from the beginning, move your back checkers up slowly towards your home board. Try to keep them in relative proximity to the rest of the checkers.

Doubles are very good for bringing the back men towards your home board. Use half of the roll for that purpose and use the other half making points somewhere else. Sometimes you will be rolling combinations that doesn't allow you to move both of your checkers well. In that case split your back men. This can be a little risky but if you play safe you'll never be a real backgammon winner. As soon as you can, bring your back men again together.

<b>Conculsion</b>
You are doing yourself a big favour if you maintain your focus and work hard towards your early game goals. If you don't you'll soon find yourself firefighting problems after one another and that's the type of game you most certainly will lose. So stay calm, and don't let things distract you from what matters in the early phases of the game.

Are Traditional Family Games a thing of the past?

Board games have evolved massively over the years.

Board games have evolved massively over the years. As a child my memories of board games were Monopoly, Draughts, Cluedo, Guess Who and many many more.  All games that we could play as a family to pass the time away. Hours of fun was had by all.

My favorite game was Monopoly a game that give me an insight to Real Estate (ironically enough, I now have a career as an Estate Agent).  Is that a coincidence or did my childhood obsession with Monopoly play on by subconscious?

Many Sunday afternoons were spent with my four sisters playing, or should I say rowing over this fabulous game.  The first row would normally be about who would like to be the iron, shoe, car etc (these were the items that you had to chose from to represent you on the board as you played). My favourite was always the dog!

The next row would be about who went first, and then the next would be about who would play the role of the Banker.

Finally the game would begin, and how much fun we had.  Hours and hours of fun week after week.

How things have changed? Today, whilst we still have the old traditional Board games, and I guess we always will, Games are far more advanced, and are often played on computers, or via DVD Players using your Television sets.

You can now play a board game on your own against a Computer (who will act as your opponent) as opposed to playing with friends and/or family.  I find this quite sad, especially knowing how much fun we had as children interacting with each other, and observing each other as we rowed over such meaningless but then important issues.

I now see my own nephews spending hours on their own in front of a computer playing games without any physical human interaction, whilst their parents get on with other things. I guess one advantage is that if you are an only child you don’t miss out on not playing games just because you had no-one else to play it with you. The Traditional games such as monopoly can now be played on a computer and the Computer can act as your opponent. You can even set what level of difficulty you want to play at.

The disadvantage to this, in my opinion is that the family getting together and interacting with each other seems to be a thing of the past.