Five Dice Strategy: 8 Tips for a Bigger Score

Five Dice is easy to learn and hard to score well at. Every turn you roll five dice up to three times, hold the ones you want, and then fill one of 13 boxes. The trick is that every box can only be used once, so the real game is choosing which box to spend on which roll.

The tips below follow the classic rules, the way Five Dice on HulaGames plays them, free in your browser against three computer rivals. The top half of the card is Ones to Sixes, with a +35 bonus for 63 or more. The bottom half is Three of a Kind, Four of a Kind, Three + Two (25), a Short Run of four (30), a Long Run of five (40), Five of a Kind (50) and Any Roll.

1. Treat the upper bonus as your first goal

The +35 upper bonus is the biggest single prize most cards ever see. You earn it by making 63 or more across Ones to Sixes, and 63 is exactly three of each face. So think of each upper box as “three or better”. Four Sixes in the Sixes box gives you 6 points of slack to spend on a weak Ones or Twos later.

2. Hold pairs and threes early

Early in the card, nearly every roll has a pair or better. Hold it and roll the rest twice. That one habit feeds the upper boxes, Three of a Kind, Four of a Kind and even Five of a Kind, all at once. If you have two pairs, the higher pair is usually the better hold, unless you still need the lower face for the bonus.

3. Put high faces in the kind boxes

Three of a Kind and Four of a Kind score the total of all five dice, not just the matching ones. Three Sixes with a 5 and a 4 is worth 27 there; three Twos with a 1 and a 3 is worth 10. Low sets usually belong in their upper box, and high sets earn more in the kind boxes.

4. Only chase runs when the dice already point that way

A Long Run (five in a row) is worth 40 and a Short Run (four in a row) is worth 30, but rolling for them from nothing wastes turns. Go for a run when your first roll already has three or four faces in a row, like 2-3-4 or 3-4-5-6. A Long Run from an open four, like 2-3-4-5, is a good bet with two rolls left, since a 1 or a 6 finishes it.

5. Keep Any Roll as your safety box

Any Roll takes the total of all five dice, whatever they are. It’s the box that saves a bad turn, so don’t spend it early on a middling roll. Hold high dice when you’re aiming at it: 5s and 6s turn a rescue into 25 or more.

6. Know when to take a 0

Sometimes no box fits, and a 0 is the right score. Late in the card, take the 0 in the box you were least likely to fill, often Five of a Kind or Four of a Kind with a turn or two left. A 0 there costs less than spending your Any Roll or an upper box on a weak score.

7. Roll for Five of a Kind when you already have four

Five of a Kind scores 50, and once you have scored that 50, every Five of a Kind after it earns +100. With four of a kind in hand and a roll left, the odds of the fifth are 1 in 6 per roll, and the four you hold are still a fine Four of a Kind or upper score if it misses. That’s a free shot, so take it.

8. Watch what the computer does

On HulaGames every hold the computer makes plays out on screen. Tiko is relaxed, Reva is sharp, and Marlo plays a near-perfect card. Watching which dice Marlo keeps, and which box Marlo picks, is one of the fastest ways to learn good holds. The gold coach glow can also point at your best box after each roll while you learn.

Try it today

Every day there’s a Daily card with the same dice for everyone, so you can compare scores with friends. Play it, or a Solo card, in Five Dice. If you like games where every choice counts, try the Mexican Train strategy tips and backgammon strategy tips next.