Where's Two Pair?

I feel strongly about the following statement, and those closest to me are well aware of my stance. Whether they agree with me is immaterial because it’s a hill I will not change my mind.

Yahtzee should have a “Two-Pair” scoring column.

Since it was introduced to the world by the E.S. Lowe Company in the 1950s (a company later purchased, along with the game, by the Milton Bradley Company) Yahtzee has cemented itself as a solid, easy-to-play, affordable table game for all ages. A classic.

Many of us (yours truly included), grew up with the game and still play it today. (Full disclosure, Joanie and I had a rollicking Yahtzee match not two nights ago.)

The concept of Yahtzee traces its roots to a number of traditional dice games. Among these are Generala, the English games of Poker Dice and Cheerio, and notably, a game called Yacht.

According to Hasbro (the company that now owns Milton Bradley), the game was invented by an anonymous Canadian couple, who called it The Yacht Game because they played it on their yacht with friends and then used their influence to convince E.S. Lowe to bring it to market.

At its core, Yahtzee is loosely based on building standard poker hands by rolling five dice, with each player getting up to three rolls per turn to make a “hand.” The entire upper section requires you to “average” at least three-of-a-kind of 1s through 6s (a score of 63) to qualify for a 35-point bonus. Note: on the upper section, the player only scores the dice that “qualify” (i.e., just the 1s, 2s, 3s, etc., rolled during that turn).

The lower section includes the following categories: Three-of-a-kind, Four-of-a-kind, Full

House, Large Straight (which equates to a straight in poker) then the anomalies, those “hands” that don’t appear in regular poker: the Small Straight, where four of five dice land in consecutive order; Chance, a catchall box where you can simply add up all the dice and that’s your score, and the Big Kahuna, Yahtzee (five-of-a-kind).

And here’s where my discussion of Two Pair comes in. Two pair is a common poker hand, and perfect as a lower-section category for Yahtzee, in mind opinion; certainly more appropriate than Small Straight or Chance. Yet, Two Pair was conspicuously left off the score sheet when the game was developed.

My question is direct and simple: Why?

Was this an oversight by the Canadian couple as they yachted around the Cape of “so-and-so” or “this-and-that”? That’s forgivable since they were likely not game designers and probably had bigger issues to deal with, like whether they chose the right name for their yacht or remembering to order ahead to the next port to make sure it had the right type and quantity of Champagne and plenty of shrimp and cavier for the upcoming leg of their cruise.

But how did E.S. Lowe, and later Milton Bradley, not identify this obvious (in my opinion) oversight? I mean, wasn’t it their job to design, build and market the best possible game for kids and adults that money could buy?

It seems obvious to me. In fact, I would argue that the Small Straight, a run of four out of five dice, which does not equate to any sort of decent poker hand, is more out of place than Two Pair.

As you can imagine (and if you know me), this issue arises every time I play the game; sometimes just in my head, but more often verbally, causing my opponents to at least quietly roll their eyes and more likely to become visibly (and often vocally) irritated with me.

To be fair, I’ve never developed a game, and certainly not a family board game. The closest thing I’ve come to it was when my best friend/cousin Mike and I created a game called 1-2-3-4-5-6 when we were kids. It required two people, each with a baseball mitt, a ball, and two bases. I would explain it further, but since trademark is still pending (after 50-plus years), I hesitate to share additional rules or intellectual property. Suffice it to say, he and I are the only people I know who have ever played it.

But back to Yahtzee, and specifically, the Two Pair controversy (and yes, I believe it is a controversy). While I’m often something of a purist when it comes to games (Fact: though I DO NOT enjoy Monopoly, I DO believe in the classic, original version and have opined ad nauseum that it should not be tampered with or changed), I do believe that not including Two Pair was––and remains––a fatal flaw in the classic game of Yahtzee, and possibly, one of the greatest mistakes in game design history.

That said, I will go to my grave (maybe at the hand of a Yahtzee opponent who’s simply had enough of my constant harping on the matter) campaigning, canvassing and lobbying for an update that gives Two Pair the respect and attention it deserves in the game of Yahtzee.

And now, after wasting minutes of your day reading this, you know EXACTLY how my Yahtzee opponents feel every time we play.

© 2025 David R. Haznaw