Play Farkle Online

How to play Farkle

Your turn starts with six dice. After every roll you must set aside at least one scoring die or combination. Then you choose: bank the points you have collected this turn, or roll the dice that are left and try for more.

If a roll has nothing that scores, that is a farkle and every point from the turn is gone. Score with all six dice and you get them all back for another roll (hot dice). Your first bank of the game has to reach the opening minimum. When someone reaches the winning score, everyone else gets one last turn to pass them.

Here, tap the dice you want to keep. The game adds up your selection and tells you if a die cannot be kept. Then press Keep and roll or Keep and bank. Stuck? Suggest a keep shows what the Steady computer player would do.

Scoring at a glance (box rules)

A combination only counts when all of its dice come up in the same roll. For the full chart, the house rules side by side and a score keeper for a game with real dice, see Play at home: rules, scoring chart and score keeper.

How the computer players decide

Before each roll a computer player looks at three numbers: the points it would lose on a farkle, the chance of a farkle with the dice it has left, and the points a roll of that many dice scores on average, plus a little for the chance of hot dice. We worked out the chance and the average exactly by checking every possible roll. If the average gain is bigger than the average loss, it rolls. Otherwise it banks.

• Careful counts a possible loss twice, so it banks sooner.
• Steady weighs gain and loss evenly.
• Bold counts a loss at half, so it keeps rolling.

The score changes the picture. Far behind the leader, every player gets braver. Well ahead, they ease off. One farkle away from a three-farkle penalty, they play safer. Before the opening minimum they have to keep rolling, on the last turn they keep rolling until they pass the leader, and anyone who reaches the winning score banks to start the last round.

They also choose which dice to keep. Each one tries every legal keep and takes the one that leaves it in the best spot, which is why you will sometimes see a computer keep a single 1 and roll five dice rather than keep a 1 and a 5 and roll four.

With six dice to roll (a 2.3% farkle chance) all three keep going until they reach the winning score.

Farkle online questions

Is this Farkle game free, and do I need an account?

It is free and there is no account, download or sign-up. The whole game runs in your browser. Your settings and your win/loss record are saved only in this browser on this device, and nothing about your games is sent to us.

Are the dice fair? Can the computer cheat?

Every die is rolled with your browser's cryptographic random number generator, and the computer players roll the same way you do. They cannot see a roll before it happens. Each one decides only from the dice on the table and the scores, and the turn log shows what it kept and why it stopped.

Which Farkle scoring rules does this game use?

It starts on the box rules: three 1s are 300, three pairs are 1,500, you need 500 in one turn to get on the board, and the game goes to 10,000. In the settings you can switch to the older "10,000" style scoring or to box rules with three 1s worth 1,000, and change the winning score, the opening minimum and the three-farkle penalty.

What happens if I reload the page in the middle of a game?

The game in progress starts over. Your settings and your record of wins and losses stay, because they are saved in this browser.

Why did the computer keep fewer dice than it could?

Keeping fewer scoring dice leaves more dice to roll, and more dice means a lower farkle chance. With a 1 and a 5 showing, keeping only the 1 gives up 50 points but rolls five dice (7.7% farkle chance) instead of four (15.7%). The computer players weigh that trade on every roll.