Rules to Toss Up Dice Game

Like any dice game, your scores in Toss Up! come down to luck. Get lucky and you score points; get unlucky and you don't. However, the game also tests your nerve by making you decide when to keep the points you earn in a round and when to risk losing them in the hope of getting an even higher score.

According to Patch Products, the manufacturer of Toss Up!, the game is suitable for two to six players aged 8 years and up. The game comes with 10 colored dice; each die has three green sides, two yellow sides and one red side. You'll also need a piece of paper and a pen to note each player's score during the game. Pick a player at random -- or by age, either oldest or youngest -- to start the game and choose the direction of gameplay.

The first player rolls all 10 dice. If you throw any greens, you get one point per die. You now decide whether to continue rolling or to end your turn and bank your points. If you play on, put the greens to one side and roll the remaining dice, setting aside greens and deciding whether to carry on at the end of every roll. If you get 10 greens and still want to continue, start over with all the dice.

You don't get any points for rolling yellows or reds. Yellows are neither good nor bad, but reds can be disastrous. If you don't roll any greens, but have one or more reds in any roll, you lose all your points for this turn and play passes to the next player.

When a player reaches 100 points or more by the end of a turn, the game moves into win mode. The player with 100 points isn't necessarily the winner, though; all the other players get one more chance to win. Each takes one more turn to try to score enough points to beat the score of the player who brought about the final round. The ultimate winner is the player with the highest score at the end of this deciding round.

There are two basic strategies in the game – risky and conservative. If you keep rolling, even when down to a couple of dice, you may get lucky and score more but you also risk losing your points. Alternatively, you may end your turn when you only have a few dice left to guarantee keeping some points. Your strategy may change at the end of the game when a player reaches 100 points. Depending on their scores, players may go all-out for as many points as possible or take a conservative approach and try to pip the leading score.

Patch Products also manufactures a Twist and Tumble version of Toss Up! This uses the same rules as the original game, but comes with a twistable dice cup. Instead of rolling the dice, you put them in the cup and twist it around to release them on to the table. You can also use the cup as a regular dice cup.