Six-Dice Risk

Roll six dice. At least one of them has to score, or the turn is over. Set aside the scoring dice you want — every die you keep has to be earning its place, so you cannot pad a pair of ones with a stray four.

Then choose. Bank and the points are yours for good. Roll on with whatever dice are left, and if that roll scores nothing, everything set aside this turn disappears.

If every die on the table ends up set aside, you get all six back and keep the points — hot dice, and the best thing that can happen in a turn. First to 5000 wins, and once somebody passes it everybody else gets one more turn, so going first is not worth a game.

The patterns are priced by measured rarity: the rarer a thing is in a roll of six dice, the more it pays, with no exceptions. The tables this genre inherited get that backwards — they usually pay a short run as much as three pairs, which turns up two and a half times less often, and pay a full run more than two triples, which is the rarest pattern on the board.

Singles: a 1 is worth 100 and a 5 is worth 50.

Sets of three or more of one face are priced by size and face, and that part is a design choice rather than a rarity one — every face is equally likely, so probability has nothing to say about whether sixes should beat twos. Three of a face pays a hundred times the face, except three ones which pay 1000, and every extra die doubles it. Six ones is 8000.

One house rule, stated: a turn has to be worth 500 before it can be banked at all, until you are on the board.

Solo is you against the target: reach 5000 in as few turns as you can, and the record counts turns rather than points.

Versus the computer offers three opponents that are genuinely different players rather than the same one slowed down. Steady banks at 300 and never looks at the score. Sharp plays every turn for its exact value. Ruthless does the same arithmetic and also watches the race, so it banks a win it could have grown and chases a total it could not reach by stopping.

Two players, one device races to 5000 on the same screen.

Daily is a different game: 10 turns, no target, highest total wins. Everybody draws from the same list of dice seeded from the UTC date, so the luck is identical and only the decisions differ.

Risk trainer shows the exact bust chance, what banking is worth, what rolling on is worth, and every legal way to keep dice ranked by what the turn becomes. Those figures are counted over all 462 hands rather than estimated. What the trainer does not know is the score — it plays the turn, not the race. Trainer runs never set a best.

One die left is a better place to be than two. A lone die scores only 33.33% of the time and two dice score 55.56% of the time, so it looks obviously worse. It is not: a single die that scores has emptied the table, which hands all six back with your points intact. With 300 on the table the solver values rolling one die above banking, and rolling two below it.

The number that matters is not the bust chance, it is the bust chance times the pile. Three dice bust 27.78% of the time whether you are risking 200 or 2000, and that is why the same roll is right early in a turn and wrong later.

Keeping more is usually keeping worse. A second 5 adds 50 points and costs you a whole die, and that die is worth far more than 50 in the rolls that follow.

An average turn played well is worth about 611 points. If a decision is offering you less than that and you still have four or more dice, it is usually not worth stopping for.

The whole game runs in your browser. Ordinary rolls come from your browser’s cryptographic random generator; the Daily comes from a list seeded by the date, so everybody gets the same dice. Nothing about your game is uploaded, and no account is needed.

Your records, your saved game, your Daily history and your sound, motion and coach settings are stored in this browser only. Nothing here asks for a name or an email, and the button on this page removes all of it — and only this game’s share of it.

Is it really free, and do I need an account?

Yes, and no. There is no sign-up, no trial and nothing to buy. The game runs in your browser and never sends your rolls anywhere.

Is this that dice game with the trademarked name?

It is the same family of push-your-luck dice game, and it is not that product. The name is ours and so is the score table, which is priced differently on purpose — see the table below for what pays what and why.

What actually loses my points?

A roll with nothing scoring in it at all. Everything set aside during the turn goes with it; everything already banked is safe forever. That is the entire risk.

Why can I not bank my first 300 points?

A turn has to be worth 500 before it can be banked at all, until you are on the board. It is a house rule and it is stated because it changes the opening completely: your first turn is forced to gamble.

How good is the coach?

Its numbers are exact rather than estimated. Six dice have only 462 distinct hands, so the bust chance and the value of rolling on are counted over the whole space rather than sampled. It is right about this turn; it does not know how the race is going.

What is the Daily?

Ten turns on one fixed list of dice, seeded from the UTC date, and the highest total wins. Everybody gets the same luck and makes different decisions — keep two dice and you draw four where somebody who kept four draws two. It changes at midnight UTC, not at your local midnight.

Where is my progress kept?

In this browser, and nowhere else. Trainer runs are counted but never set a best, because the exact odds were on screen. The button on this page erases all of it permanently.

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