Patent Application
20240091629
Dice with playing card indicia, i.e., dice displaying a combination of rank and suit indicia, commonly referred to as poker dice, have existed for a long time; an early patent dates to 1881, U.S. Pat. No. 244,520. Most versions of poker dice are presented in a standard six-sided cube format.
On a six-sided poker die, the four traditional playing card suits cannot be evenly distributed, unless two sides of the die lack suit indicia. The disadvantage of an uneven distribution of suit indicia, across a set of dice, e.g., where some of the dice feature two instances of a particular suit and others only feature one instance of the same suit, is that the probability of rolling a particular suit depends on the die or dice already rolled, or left to roll. The player must keep track of individual dice to estimate the probabilities of suit-based scores, and it is more challenging to gain an intuition of the scoring probabilities through playing the game over time, as the frequency of rolling suit-based scores will fluctuate from one scenario to another, depending on the die or dice already rolled, or left to roll. The disadvantage of leaving two sides without suit indicia, on the other hand, is that the probability of rolling a particular suit is one in six, the same as a rolling a particular rank, which makes the distinction between ranks and suits less meaningful from a game design point of view. For example, there would be no meaningful rank order difference, and associated point difference, between rolling five ranks of the same kind (known as a five of a kind) and five suits of the same kind (known as a flush).
Poker dice of other polyhedrons have been patented, including twelve-sided dice, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 645,112; 3,608,905; 5,145,175; and 5,224,708. While these dice provide evenly distributed suit indicia, the probability of rolling a particular rank differs from the standard die's one-in-six probability. This might not be a material disadvantage for the preferred use for most of these dice, namely games that simulate the gameplay of poker, and other card games. Indeed, several of these dice are explicitly designed to distribute the 52 rank-suit combinations of a standard playing card deck across a set of dice, in which the ranks are symmetrically distributed over the set so that, by design, no rank features more than once on a single die. The probability of rolling a particular rank of such a die, consequently, is equivalent to one divided by the number of sides of said die.
There are certain games, however, where it would be a disadvantage to use a die where the probability of rolling a particular rank differs from a standard die. Such games would, generally, include games from the genre of dice games sometimes called “category games,” which includes games such as Yatzy, Yacht and Generala. Most casual players with experience of playing such games have developed an intuition for the scoring probabilities using a standard six-sided die, and they could find it challenging to adjust to a category game with a score category structure they are generally familiar with, but that employs dice where the probability of rolling a particular rank differs from the standard die.
The present invention comprises one or more dice, with at least twelve sides, wherein at least twelve sides display two indicia; one indicium from a set of six indicia, together with another indicium from a set of four indicia. The indicia are displayed the same number of times on each die; the first indicium is displayed at least twice on each die and the second indicium is displayed at least thrice on each die. The invention may be embodied in both physical and electronic forms, or a combination thereof.
In the preferred embodiment, the die, and sets thereof, is a twelve-sided dodecahedron-shaped die and the indicia consist of ranks and suits, respectively. The ranks are displayed twice on each die, and the suits are displayed thrice on each die. For a poker die, this is the geometrically most parsimonious solution to preserve a standard die's one-in-six probability of rolling a particular rank, while providing identical probability of rolling a particular suit across a set of dice, in which said dice display rank-suit combinations on all sides.
Further, in the preferred embodiment, there are four kinds of this die. The first kind displays the ranks Ace, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, wherein the odd ranks are combined with the suits Spades and Hearts, while the even ranks are combined with Diamonds and Clubs. The second kind also displays the ranks Ace, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, but the odd ranks are combined with the suits Diamonds and Clubs, while the even ranks are combined with Spades and Hearts. The third kind displays the ranks Seven, Eight, Nine, Jack, Queen, King, wherein the odd ranks are combined with the suits Spades and Hearts, while the even ranks are combined with Diamonds and Clubs. The second kind also displays the ranks Seven, Eight, Nine, Jack, Queen, King, but the odd ranks are combined with the suits Diamonds and Clubs, while the even ranks are combined with Spades and Hearts. The advantage of displaying inverse odd rank-suit combinations on the second and fourth kind, in relation to the first and third kind, respectively, is that it allows for sets of these dice to form a consecutive series of ranks of the same suit, known as a straight flush. The benefit of the rank configuration the third and fourth kind, in relation to the first and second kind, is that these dice can be used in combination with dice of the first and second kind to form a series of consecutive ranks, wherein a Seven is consecutive to a Six and a King is consecutive to an Ace.
A fifth kind of die is employed in the preferred embodiment of the invention; it is a dodecahedron-shaped die with Joker, or Jackpot, indicia on two sides, with remaining ten sides being blank.
The dice so described are used for playing games in the “category games” genre in the preferred embodiment, but are not restricted to these games.
The following dice describe the preferred embodiment but the invention is not restricted to this particular embodiment.
By virtue of each rank being displayed twice on each kind of die in
By virtue of each kind of die in
By virtue of the dice in
By virtue of the kind of die in
The dice so described are used in dice games belonging to the genre “category games” in the preferred embodiment of the invention, but the invention is not restricted to these games. The game described below, is the preferred game for the employment of said dice. The game employs three dice of the kind shown in
A turn starts by a player first rolling the five Base dice. After the first roll, the player may opt to re-roll some, none or all of the Base dice. After the second roll, the player may again opt to re-roll some, none or all of the Base dice. Once the player has decided to not re-roll any more Base dice or when the two permissible re-rolls have been exhausted, the player may roll the two Court dice together with the Joker die once. The player may then combine the result of the Base dice, Court dice and Joker die to form any combination that qualify for any of the eighteen “Ranks,” “Multiples” and “Arrays” score categories in TABLE A below.
Once a player has selected to score in a score category, the player may not score again in that same category for the remainder of the game. If the dice do not qualify for any unscored score category, the player must select a score category to forgo for the remainder of the game. Once a player has selected to score in a score category, or a score category to forego, the score is calculated based on the below table and entered onto a score card, after which the turn ends. The process is repeated for each player in turn until all eighteen turns have been completed for every player. The “Bonuses & Penalties” score categories are calculated and the player with highest total when summing all scores wins the game.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63401692 | Aug 2022 | US |
