Yahtzee

Yahtzee is a dice game made by Milton Bradley (now owned by Hasbro), which was first marketed as "Yatzie" by National Association Service of Toledo, Ohio, in the early 1940s. Yatzie was included in a game set called "LUCK - 15 Grand Dice Games". It was marketed under the name of Yahtzee by game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe in 1956. Lowe is also responsible for introducing Bingo to the U.S. market. The game is a development of earlier dice games such as Poker Dice, Yacht and Generala. It is also similar to Yatzy, which is popular in Scandinavia.

The object of the game is to score points by rolling five dice to make certain combinations. The dice can be rolled up to three times in a turn to try to make various scoring combinations. A game consists of thirteen rounds. After each round the player chooses which scoring category is to be used for that round. Once a category has been used in the game, it cannot be used again. The scoring categories have varying point values, some of which are fixed values and others where the score depends on the value of the dice. A Yahtzee is five-of-a-kind and scores 50 points; the highest of any category. The winner is the player who scores the most points.

Yahtzee (game show)

Yahtzee is a game show that aired from January 11 to September 1988. Based on the dice game Yahtzee, the show was hosted by Peter Marshall, with Larry Hovis serving as both the show's announcer and a regular panelist. Each week featured a different hostess serving as "dice girl", including Kelly Grant, Denise DiRenzo, and Teresa Ganzel.

Yahtzee was originally taped at Trump's Castle in Atlantic City, New Jersey, though later it moved to Showboat Hotel & Casino.

Gameplay

Two teams of three contestants played against each other along with a panel of five celebrities.

The team in control—starting with the challengers—chose one of six open-ended questions (e.g., "Name something you put on rice." or "What's your biggest gripe when you go shopping?"). Marshall asked the chosen question to the panel, who then wrote down their responses. Each contestant, starting with the team captain, gave a verbal answer in an attempt to match the stars' answers. The other team played one of the remaining five questions. The team with the most matches won the round. If the teams had the same number of matches, a tie-breaker involving only the team captains was played. The celebrities read the question to themselves and then wrote down an answer. Marshall read the question aloud to the team captains, and the first contestant to buzz-in and provide an answer that matched one of the celebrities' answers won control of the round.