Pig
The whole push-your-luck genre in one die. Roll as long as you dare: every face adds to your turn, a 1 wipes it, first to 100 wins. Two minutes a game.
One link, live dice, up to six players.
How to play
- On your turn, roll the die as many times as you like. Each roll of 2 to 6 adds to your turn total.
- Roll a 1 and that is a pig: your whole turn total is lost and the die passes.
- Hold at any point to bank your turn total into your score. Banked points are safe forever.
- First to bank 100 wins on the spot. You roll first, which is a small edge, and we admit it.
The odds of surviving
Each roll survives five times in six. That sounds generous until the rolls stack up. Exact figures, in keeping with how every number on this site is produced:
| Rolls in a turn | Chance of no pig |
|---|---|
| 1 | 83.33% |
| 2 | 69.44% |
| 3 | 57.87% |
| 4 | 48.23% |
| 5 | 40.19% |
| 6 | 33.49% |
| 8 | 23.26% |
| 10 | 16.15% |
When to hold
Suppose your rule is “roll until the turn reaches some number, then hold”. Computed exactly, here is what each rule banks per turn on average:
| Hold at | Average banked per turn |
|---|---|
| 10 | 6.87 |
| 15 | 7.85 |
| 20 | 8.14 |
| 25 | 8.00 |
| 30 | 7.58 |
The table is why “hold at 20” is the classic advice: the curve is nearly flat around it, so simple play costs almost nothing. The real game is knowing when to break the rule. Behind with the opponent closing on 100, a safe little bank just loses slowly, and the right play is to keep rolling.
About the computer player
Pig is one of the few dice games that has been solved outright, and this opponent deliberately is not the solution. It plays the well-studied human strategy: hold around 21, press harder when behind, bank the moment banking wins, and abandon caution when you are about to close the game. Solid and beatable, and honest about being so.