Equipment:
Dice (6)
A flat surface onto which the dice are thrown
Sheet of paper for keeping score
A writing utensil
Play
Farkle is played by two or more players, with each player in succession having a turn at throwing the dice. Each player's turn results in a score, and the scores for each player accumulate to some winning total (usually 10,000).
At the beginning of each turn, the player throws all six six-sided dice.
After each throw, one or more scoring dice must be set aside (see sections on scoring below).
The player may then either end their turn and bank the score accumulated so far, or continue to throw the remaining dice.
A player must score 500 points in one turn before he/she can start standard scoring.
If the player has scored all six dice, they have "hot dice" and must continue their turn with a new throw of all six dice, adding to the score they have already accumulated.
If none of the dice score in any given throw, the player has "farkled" and all points for that turn are lost.
At the end of the player's turn, the dice are handed to the next player in succession (usually in clockwise rotation), and they have their turn.
Once a player has achieved a winning point total, each other player has ONE last turn to score enough points to surpass that high-score.
Scoring:
The following scores for single dice or combinations of dice:
For example, if a player throws 1-2-3-3-3-5, they could do any of the following:
score three 3s as 300 and then throw the remaining three dice
score the single 1 as 100 and then throw the remaining five dice
score the single 5 as 50 and then throw the remaining five dice
score three 3s, the single 1, and the single 5 for a total of 450 and then throw the remaining die
score three 3s, the single 1, and the single 5 for a total of 450 and stop, banking 450 points in that turn
This is not an exhaustive list of plays based on that throw, but it covers the most likely ones. If the player continues throwing, as in any of the above cases except the last, they risk farkling and thus losing all accumulated points. On the other hand, if they score five dice and have only one die to throw, they have a 1 in 3 chance of scoring a single 1 or a single 5, and then having scored all six dice they will have "hot dice" and can throw all six dice again to further increase their score.
Each scoring combination must be achieved in a single throw. For example, if a player has already set aside two individual 1s and then throws a third with the four dice remaining, they do not have a triplet of 1s for a score of 1000 but merely three individual 1s for a score of 300.