What is the difference between a small and large straight?
The two straights are Yahtzee's sequence combos, and the small one is more forgiving than most players realize.
How each straight works
A small straight needs any four dice in sequence - 1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-5 or 3-4-5-6 - with the fifth die free to be anything, and pays 30. A large straight needs all five in a row, either 1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6, and pays 40. Since every large straight automatically contains a small one, a five-card run can rescue an empty Small Straight box any time.
Playing the odds
The straights reward keeping the right middle dice. Threes and fours appear in every possible run, so a 3-4 pair is the strongest straight seed on the table. Holding 2-3-4-5 gives you two winning faces for the large straight - a one or a six - which is a 55% chance across two re-rolls of a single die. Chase the large straight when you hold four in a row; settle for the 30 when the card demands it.
Straights in other variants
The family prices runs very differently. Yatzy's straights are exact five-die runs - 1-2-3-4-5 scores 15, 2-3-4-5-6 scores 20. Yacht, the 1938 original, pays 30 for both its Little and Big straights, and Generala rolls them into one Escalera worth 20. Only Yahtzee lets a four-die run score, which makes its Small Straight the friendliest sequence box in the genre.
Related questions
What is a full house in Yahtzee?
A full house is three dice of one number and two of another - 4-4-4-2-2, say - and it scores a flat 25 points in Yahtzee. It's one of the most reachable combos on the card. Other variants price it differently: Yatzy scores the sum of the dice, and Generala's Full pays 30.
What is the difference between Yahtzee and Yatzy?
They're siblings, not twins. Yahtzee has 13 categories with fixed scores for combos - Full House 25, Small Straight 30, Large Straight 40. Yatzy, the public-domain Scandinavian version, has 15 categories including One Pair and Two Pairs, scores its straights at 15 and 20, and its Full House as the sum of the dice.
How do you play Yahtzee?
Each turn you roll five dice up to three times, setting aside any dice you want to keep between rolls. Then you score the result in exactly one of 13 categories on your scorecard - each category can only be used once. After 13 turns the card is full, and the highest total wins.