Yahtzee Mind, Beginner's Mind

It had been such a long time since I played Yahtzee that I returned to having a "beginner's mind" about the game as I tried to sort through how exactly you play the game and then explain it to my daughter a couple of days ago.

As Shunryu Suzuki says in his famous book, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In expert's mind there are few."

I played the heck out of that game when I was younger. During the holidays or when my nephews (sons of my oldest brother are around my age) would spend the weekends at my parents' house per the divorce agreement, we'd all sit around the kitchen table and play Yahtzee, Risk, and other assorted board games. Yahtzee and Risk were my favorites.

So now I'm thinking about the different options I have for strategy when Hannah and I play, not closing off the many possibilities for winning the game via diverse means.

But I have some questions and concerns about Yahtzee that I might not have thought of back then.

In the Upper Section once you add up the scores for aces, twos, and so on, if your total score is "63 or over," you "score 35" more points. So why that number, 63, a number that seems odd to me now? It doesn't even look strong. It's a wimpy number. It exudes wussiness. If I were to see 63 on an offensive lineman, the number doesn't exhibit greatness. I can think of no famous 63s in college football or the NFL. Even looking at the number, it's soft, all roundy and stuff -- not jagged lines that inspire greatness like 72 or 54 or 78 or 77.

Ok, maybe the above about 63 is a stretcher. But how did the R&D folks at Parker Brothers come up with this number I wonder. Was it based on weeks of playing the game, or did some statistician calculate the possible variations of total scores in the upper section and find the mean or median? I would assume the latter method is what went down, but I prefer to believe that a group of four folks playing for weeks on end, drinking cocktails, and scarfing down food at Hasbro HQ in Pawtucket, RI. I prefer that story. I have preferences.

From my perspective now, I have issues with how the Lower Section is arranged, an arrangement that I propose is the reason why I still have problems figuring out what beats what in poker. You see, in poker here are the hands in order of strength: straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of kind, pair, etc.

Now in the Lower Section of Yahtzee, it's all screwed up. From top to bottom it goes: 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, full house, small straight (sequence of four), large straight (sequence of five), yahtzee (five of a kind), and chance. All you can see, there's no semblance of order here except for 3 and 4 of a kind. Statistical and organizational tomfoolery.

Because of this, to this day when I play poker, I still get an overwhelming feeling that a straight should beat a full house. I feel it in my bones. You see, Lg. Straight is right next to Yahtzee.