Olathe is a game based heavily off of Balut.
Set Up
Each player will need five six-sided dice and a score card. The score cards must have 2 or more Free columns and no more than one Down and one Up.
Game Play
Players take turns. Each player declares which column they will be rolling for. Next, each player rolls their dice, setting aside any desired ones, and, optionally, repeating this up to two more times. Once the dice are all set aside, the player applies the result to the appropriate category.
If applying to the Free column, any cell without a score may be selected. If the Down column is selected, the player rolls starting with the Fours cell down to the Olathe cell. If the Up column is selected, the player rolls starting with the Olathe cell and moves up to the Fours cell. Once a column is filled out, it cannot be selected again for this game.
If at any time an Olathe is rolled, the player shouts in a sing-song voice "Olathe!"
Once the card is filled out, the player's turn is over and they will calculate their score.
Categories
There are seven categories, which are loosely based on poker hands.
- Fours (all fours rolled)
- Fives (all fives rolled)
- Sixes (all sixes rolled)
- Straight (either small or large)
- House (three of a kind and two of a different kind)
- Choice (anything rolled)
- Olathe (five of a kind)
Scoring
The scoring is quite comprehensive. It's a combination of scores from each category and several incentive bonuses based on categories and total points.
Based on the faces
- Fours, fives, and sixes score equal to their number of pips of the corresponding faces.
- Small straights score 15.
- Large straights score 20.
- House scores based on the total number of pips.
- Choice scores based on the total number of pips.
- Olathe scores 20 plus the total number of pips.
Incentive Bonuses
There are a few incentive bonuses based on what happened in the categories and total score.
- 52 or more points in fours is worth 2 points.
- 65 or more points in fives is worth 2 points.
- 78 or more points in sixes is worth 2 points.
- If every straight box is filled, it is worth 4 points.
- If every house box is filled, it is worth 3 points.
- If there are 100 or more points in total for choice, it is worth 2 points.
- Every Olathe is worth 2 points.
Once these points are totaled, there are a final set of scoring based on this value and will yield the final score:
| Intermediary Score | Points |
|---|---|
| 0 - 299 | -2 |
| 300 - 349 | -1 |
| 350 - 399 | 0 |
| 400 - 449 | 1 |
| 450 - 499 | 2 |
| 500 - 549 | 3 |
| 550 - 599 | 4 |
| 600 - 649 | 5 |
| 650 - 812 | 6 |
This is the player's final score. The player with the highest score once all cards are filled out, wins.