Ron gets declared, and suddenly all player are holding their breath. You count out fan points, but who knows if they did it right? The rest of the table hold its breath as the winner counts out wind matches, concealed bonuses and flower tiles, trying to avoid an arithmetic error that could lead to arguments. … Read more

And then there it is. That silent moment between dice and floor where you hold them in your hands and gravity does its thing. A game of chance becomes challenge of nerves. You’ve racked up a few turns. You haven’t racked up so many turns as to make you comfortabley, but you have just enough … Read more

Drop Dead. It’s a game where you gets together with some buddies, and for the initial rounds it feels like pure luck. Roll out five dice, and you might watch half of them vanish into the dead box on a single turn. It is fun and chaotic. However, there is a mathematical engine driving the … Read more

So you plug in your starting numbers (your running total and the dice you’ve already put aside). That’s your starting point, and it matters because it’s telling the calculator what your odds will be based off your current state. Did you roll a one and a two? Then you’re in a very different place then … Read more

But as you get further into Qwinto, math gets less intuitive. Especially on those final turns where you panic. “I could of filled out that row, but now I’ve lost more then what I gained.” That’s when your gut won’t help. The game has strict rules around how much points is worth, and how many … Read more

In a Zilch game you learn to panic with six dice remaining and only needing one more point to win. They rattle around the table. They comes to rest in a formation that nets you nothing. In that instant intuition lets you down, probability takes its place. Time to bank points? Or time to go … Read more

“Take a moment to roll five dice. Look at your outcome. How many ones are there? How many twos? Threes? This sounds easy, except when another one comes along and spoils the hand. Unfortunately, common probability tables follows a one-at-a-time path, rather than a multi-layered combination, which is why most folks intuitively play by feel. … Read more