Notes

I was searching for a science fair project, and I found an article about Yahtzee. I like math, and I was trying to find something using probability. I read that for about every 22 turns you take (or about 4.7%), you will get one Yahtzee. So for my project, I wanted to see if trying to aim for a Yahtzee every turn will get you a higher score. I discussed this with my parents, and they got a Yahtzee game and helped with some of my graphs.
I sat down at a table with a scorecard and a pencil. I rolled the dice between 1-3 times and made a decision on the category that fits the best. I completed an entire game, added up my score and then started a new game. I continued until I completed five games. Next, I got a new scorecard, and changed my goal to going for a Yahtzee. This time when I rolled, I only kept dice of the same number and almost every time I rolled three times. I continued until I filled up my scorecard, added up my score and then started a new game. Once again, I played until I completed 5 games. I repeated this entire process two more times on different days until I had 15 trials of each type.
I created several graphs to help with analyzing results. My circle graphs show that going for a Yahtzee has 46% of its total scores at 350 and higher, compared to playing for best available which is 33%. Playing for best available has an 80% chance of scoring a 250 or better, while going for Yahtzee has a 66% chance.
I reached the conclusion that when you play for the best available category, you get on average a higher score. This is what I expected, but I thought the results would be more drastic. I would like to try this experiment again with other people to see if the results are changed by people taking turns. I had about 1.1% more Yahtzee’s than the average 4.7%, meaning that I get a Yahtzee every about 17 turns.