Small Stakes

a dice game
by Jesse Fuchs
In Small Stakes, dice are the
ends, dice are the means, and
there’s only one choice to make:
play it safe, or press your luck?
Small Stakes is for 2 players,
takes 5 to 15 minutes to play,
and requires nothing besides a
flat surface, this bag, and these
dice. The Basic, Advanced, and
Expert games offer 1, 2, and 3
recursive rings of risk and re-
ward, respectively, but no matter
how you play the goal is the
same: get all the dice!
 Basic Game

In the Basic game, each player

starts with nine dice of one
color; these form the player’s ini-
tial pool. The bag, containing
the remaining dice, is placed be-
tween the players, on one side
of the play area.
The setup of the Basic game of Small
Stakes. Note that the dice don’t need
to be set to 6; while a die is in the
pool, its value has no effect on the
game.
 Play
A game of Small Stakes is made
up of a series of rounds, each of
which is made up of a series of
duels. To start a duel, both play-
ers roll a die from their pool and
place it in their field.

The players then calculate the to-

tal value of the dice in their fields.
If the totals are equal, both play-
ers must roll another die and add
it to their field. If one player’s to-
tal is lower, she must choose
whether to press or yield.
To start this duel, White (W) and Black
(B) both rolled a 2. Since the players’
totals were equal, both rolled again;
W rolled a 3, and B a 4. W, with a
current total of 5 to B’s 6, must now
choose whether to press or yield.
 Pressing

A player presses by rolling a die

from her pool and placing it on
her side of the field.

Her opponent then does the

same, and the new totals are
compared as before.
W presses, and rolls a 5; B then rolls a
1. Since B’s current total of 7 is less
than W’s 10, it is now B who must de-
cide whether to yield or press.
 Yielding

A player yields by putting a die

from her pool on the bag. Dice
on the bag are out of play for
the rest of the round.

Her opponent then collects both

fields into her pool, and a new
duel begins.
B yields, and this is the result: B ends
up with 5 dice, W with 12, and the bag
with 1. A new duel then begins. Note
that once a round has begun, die color
will not matter until the round ends.
 End of Duel
If neither player chooses to yield,
a duel ends when either player
runs out of dice. The player with
the higher total collects both fields.
If both players still have dice in
their pools, a new duel begins.

If the totals are equal when a duel

ends, each player collects all the
dice in her own field, and a new
duel begins.
In the next duel, B is up 15-12 when she
runs out of dice, which ends the duel. B
takes the 10 dice in the field into her
pool, and a new duel begins.
 End of Round
If a player has no dice at the
start of a duel, she has lost that
round, and must put three dice
of her color into the bag. Dice in
the bag are out of play for the
rest of the game.

Each player then takes all re-

maining dice of her color into
her pool, and a new round
starts.
If the duel had ended like this, how-
ever, B would be down 14-13, and thus
must yield. Since this leaves B with no
dice in her pool, she loses the round.
W puts three of the black dice in the
bag, and B retrieves the six remaining
black dice for the next round.
 End of Game

If all of the dice of a player’s

color are in the bag, she has lost
the game.
At the end of this brief duel, W is
forced to yield. Having lost the round,
W must put the last three white dice in
the bag, and thus loses the game.
 Clarifications
• Neither the absolute totals nor the or-
der of the dice in the fields matters; all
that really does is how many dice are in
the field, who’s ahead, and by how much.
Players may thus avoid excessive arithme-
tic by “canceling out” dice, as seen in the
diagram on the inside front cover.

• That yielding and pressing each consist

of two steps has no effect in the Basic
game; it should be kept to, though, as it
does play an important role in the Ad-
vanced and Expert games.

• Since die color doesn’t matter while a

round is in progress, players can ex-
change dice between duels if they wish,
and should roll dice of their own color
when possible, to avoid confusion.
W could exchange his two black dice
for two of B’s white dice, giving W a
uniform pool. B could also then ex-
change her remaining white die for the
black die on the bag, giving her a uni-
form pool as well. Or not.
 Advanced Game
The Advanced game is identical to the
Basic game, except:

• Each player starts with ten dice.

• The number of dice the loser of a

round must put in the bag is deter-
mined by the green cube.

At the start of each round, the green

cube is set to 2 and placed in front of
the bag, where it is under the control of
both players.
The setup of the Advanced game.
 Green Cube
A player who controls the cube may
offer it when either:

• Her opponent has pressed, but the

player has not yet rolled.

• Her opponent has yielded, but the

player has not yet collected the fields.

Her opponent must either immediately

concede the entire round, or accept
sole control of the green cube and in-
crease its value by 2, in which case the
round continues as normal. If the
cube’s value is already 6, it is set to 1,
and cannot be raised further; this rep-
resents all remaining dice.
B started the round with fewer dice and
thus sole control of the green cube—until
at some point she offered it to W, who
accepted it. Now that the tables could be
turning—W has only a 1 in 6 of losing this
duel, and winning will leave him with six
dice and B with three—W may want to of-
fer it back to B before rolling his final die.
 Expert Game
The Expert game is identical to the
Advanced game, except:

• Each player starts with twelve

dice.

• The value of winning the game is

determined by the doubling cube.

At the start of the game, the dou-

bling cube is placed in front of the
bag, where it is under the control of
both players and considered to
have a value of 1.
The setup of the Tournament game.
Since there is no ‘1’ on a doubling
cube, the convention is to set it to ‘64’,
which means ‘1’. At least until someone
re-re-re-re-re-doubles, at which point it
really does mean ‘64’. None of this is
my fault.
 Doubling Cube
As with the green cube, a player
may offer the doubling cube to her
opponent, who must either con-
cede the game or accept control
of the cube and double its current
value. A player who controls both
cubes may offer either one imme-
diately after the other.
The winner of the game is consid-
ered to have won a number of
games equal to the value of the
doubling cube.
In this game, B jumped out to a lead and
offered W the doubling cube. W accepted,
came back, and offered the cube back to
B, who accepted. Now the tables have
turned again, and B ponders whether to of-
fer it back to W—though if she does and
rolls a 1, W may offer it right back to her,
perhaps along with the green cube...
 Strategy
• In all three versions of Small Stakes,
whether to press or yield is the commonest
decision and often an easy one: there’s no
reason to yield with only one die left, and
few would yield when down 1 or 2. Other-
wise, you must use judgment and intuition;
while the game has a linear structure and
no hidden information, its recursive nature
makes calculating exact probabilities diffi-
cult, especially near the beginning.

• Since the dice are a ‘closed economy’,

the value of each individual die goes up as
the number of dice goes down. You should
thus become more aggressive as the round
and/or game progresses, as the penalty for
yielding effectively increases.
• The fruitful paradox of a stakes-raising
cube is that it can simultaneously be ra-
tional for one player to offer and for the
other player to accept. This generally oc-
curs when the offering player’s chance of
winning is somewhere in the 60-80% range.
Although the exact window depends on the
situation, playtesting data suggests a few
rough benchmarks to consider:

• At the start of a 10-to-5 round in the Ba-

sic version, the player with 10 dice has
around a 60% chance of winning the
round.

• At the start of a 12-to-8 round in the

Advanced version, the player with 12 dice
has around a 70% chance of winning the
game.