Return of the Farkle (this time in the embodiment of a dice game)

[Drew Danielson]

I guess I should look more closely at the ADSL digest more often...  I
recently did some web-looking-up (as opposed to research?) on Farkle and
Farkling, previous to independent of the discussion on this list, which
I wasn't aware of.  I don't remember what spurred this looking-up, must
have been a wild hare...

What I'd found was a dice game that some people accuse of having
medieval or Rennaissance origins.  It's very similar to a game called
'Zonk' that I played a few times way back in undergrad life.  It was a
popular excuse for draining a keg of beer...

FWIW, doing a 'with all of these words' search on Google for with
'farkle' and 'dice' as the two non-concatenated words, turns up 4,590
pages.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=farkle+dice

One typical set of rules follows, and there are also a couple of other
typical links below.


[from http://enigmastation.com/~cislyn/game/farkle.html]
A 1 by itself is worth 100 points
A 5 by itself is worth 50 points
Any three of a kind rolled at the same time are worth 100 times the
value of the pips showing. Except for ones - they're worth 1000 as
3-of-a-kind. If you roll 3 ones in several different rolls, though, this
is 300 points, and not 1000. The same applies for fives. 3 fives rolled
seperately equal only to 150 points.
A run of all the dice, regardless of how they're rolled, are worth 1000
points
Six of a kind rolled in multiple rolls are worth 500 times the pips
showing, except for ones - six of a kind for ones are worth 5000 points
Six of a kind rolled in a single roll are worth 1000 times the pips
showing. Six of a kind for ones are worth 10000 points
If, after rolling all the dice, you can keep everything on the table,
you can choose to continue rolling, with all the dice. There are bonus
points associated with taking this risk - 100 points after the first
roll, 200 for the second time you keep going, 400 for the next, 800
after that, 1600 after that... you get the point.
If you roll all the dice and get nothing at all to keep (this is called
"farkling out"), you lose 1000 points - if you don't have 1000 points to
lose, you lose what you have, and the rest gets split up between the
other players.


http://www.centralconnector.com/GAMES/farkle.html
http://www.faires.com/farkle.html




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Date:    Thu, 10 Jul 2003 16:24:57 -0500
From:    Joan Houston Hall <jdhall at WISCMAIL.WISC.EDU>
Subject: Re: Farkling/farggling

As I recall, it was so widespread we decided not to enter it in DARE.

At 12:47 AM 7/10/2003 -0500, you wrote:

 >---------------------- Information from the mail header
 >-----------------------
 >Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
 >Poster:       Tom Kysilko <pds at VISI.COM>
 >Subject:      Re: Farkling/farggling
 >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 >
 >At 7/9/2003 08:25 AM -0700, Peter A. McGraw wrote:

 > >I remember playing the game as a kid in So. California, and the
order was
 > >definitely "rocks, scissors and paper."  The logical pecking order,
so to
 > >speak.

 >
 >I played the game in No. MN in the '50s and '60s under the name "Paper,
 >Stone, and Scissors".
 >
 >With only three items, every order is logical.
 >
 >I could not find the game in DARE under "Paper", "Rock", or
 >"Scissors".  Would that be because the variations were judged not to be
 >regionally distributed, or because the game was below DARE's radar, or
 >because it will all be under "Stone"?
 >
 >
 > Tom Kysilko        Practical Data Services
 > pds at visi.com Saint Paul MN USA


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