Talk:Farkle

What does Farkle mean?

What does "farkle" mean in Mornington Crescent? -phma

Farkle is a dance move popularized by the Farkle family on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In

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In other farkle news: A) Farkle is really a family name sometimes found in US south, right?

B) This family name was incorporated into the name of the fruit farkleberry.

- I'm not sure about these, so posting to talk. Hopefully others can improve.

• OK, apparently, Farkle is not a name, but is really a medieval game. Farkleberry is real, but name is of unknown origin.
• Farkle Mincus is the name of a teenage male "genius" in a popular series on the Disney TV Channel (Girl Meets World). Perhaps Disney knows if this is a "real" name?!66.81.244.121 (talk) 16:54, 24 December 2015 (UTC)Just Addin

I just did a major revision, citing eight different internet sources for rules and scoring. My apologies to anyone whose text got lost in the change. My philosophy (as you can read) is that there are a few rules and scorings that pretty much everyone agrees on, as well as a completely unstandardizable collection of variants. This approach does justice to farkle's origins and continued existence as a folk game, and provides readers with the range of options available to them for farkle play.

If you would like to see your version of farkle included, please add to the sections on scoring and play variations as necessary. Arguments could however be made for not doing so, since the currently-described list of variations is limited to those for which there are internet sources.

Also, the redirect from farkle to farkel was reversed. A google search for farkle turns up over twice as many pages as a search for farkel. Also, the web page for Pocket Farkel acknowledges that the original name was farkle and they changed it to Farkel for their commercially marketed version.

As to style, I have used they/their/them as gender-neutral third-person-singular pronouns, in keeping with the definitions and usages cited in the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition.Jbening 21:32, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been continuing to add to and tweak the article, hopefully ending soon. In case anyone's curious, I've used combinatorics supplemented by spreadsheet calculations to determine the odds given in the article. For most of the odds, I first calculated by combinatorics and then verified with the spreadsheet--arriving always at the same odds both ways. The odds of farkling with 4-6 dice involve enough different situations that I relied entirely on the spreadsheet for them. And the more recently added odds were done exclusively using combinatorics, as I had by then become more sure of my calculations. If anyone doubts my odds and doesn't have enough experience of combinatorics to check them, let me know and I can walk through some examples.Jbening 02:39, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I add this this is not OR because, like any probabilities these result from calculations that are straightforward to people with only moderate experience of mathematics. They do not involve opinion or inference.Jbening 05:48, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Gettin' on the board

Sorry to the user who added this line, but it didn't seem to be written at an encyclopedic level:

"To get on the board a score of 600 points in one turn is needed."

First of all, every time I've played it's been 500 points. Also, this should be phrased better. Perhaps "In one variation, in order for a player to begin accumulating points they need to first score 500 points in one turn, thus putting them 'on the board.'" would be a better way to phrase it. But it's certainly open for improvements. Darkage7 18:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Darkage7--I agree. Also, that issue is discussed in the Play Variations section of the article, since it's seen in some but not all versions of the game. Jbening 00:27, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

consequence farkle

i have played a variation of farkle where before the games begin there is an agreed upon consequence (usually some dare, an example being a fiend of mine had to walk down a busy street in a speedo) by all players for the loser (the player with the least number of points at the end of the game) i cant find any websites other than blogs mentioning this variation and was wondering if anyone knew of this variation or links to standards for it. Rubico (talk) 16:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I never came across anything like that when I was researching the rewrite of the article. I would describe that as a general kind of bet that could be applied to any number of games--especially drinking games I suppose. Jbening (talk) 00:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Probability of farkling with three dice

Hey Wikiwoods! By my calculations, it is 1 in 3.6 (or 60/216). There are 64 combinations of three dice that don't have any 1's or any 5's. Of those, 4 are triplets (2-2-2, 3-3-3, 4-4-4, 6-6-6). So that leaves 60 of 216 combinations of three dice that farkle. I think what you did is add those 4 to the 64 for 68/216, which would indeed be 3.18, but adding them has it backwards. Or am I missing something? Jbening (talk) 22:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

probability of 6-of-a-kind ---- 1 in 6 chance of rolling any number on one die. With 6 dice the odds are 6^6 which is 46656. Is this the correct approach? I think it is. Can someone confirm before the article is edited to reflect this change.

Computer Version

There is a freeware computer version of the game called Emperor Yang's Dice. Details and link to download are here: http://freewareisalive.18.forumer.com/index.php?s=a21c3990c5a0a2b5e252be49bfb90d86&showtopic=68 DJParker39 (talk) 06:22, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Farkle Probabilities

The Farkle Section is updated to include an external link to a page containing derivations of the odds (Farkle Odds) and simulation results. The external page adds to the subject matter here because more scoring combinations can be found there and because the calculations are explained in great detail there.

The probability of double triplets was changed from 1 in 78 to 1 in 155 following the new external reference. A reference supporting the earlier could not be found. It is likely a double count of the combinations from rearrangements and number assignments.

Ggraham412 (talk) 01:26, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

The probability for 6 ones should be 1/6^6 = 1/46,656 not what is written (1/7776 which would be accurate for 5 dice). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:524C:5200:C0DE:561E:9977:DF57 (talk) 08:06, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

The probability of six of a kind is the probability of rolling six ones, or six twos, or six threes, etc. With six ways to roll six of a kind, the probability is 6*1/46,656=1/7776. Jbening (talk) 13:59, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Dicegamers link

Someone just added a link to www.dicegamers.com with "detailed farkle rules and variants". That page was almost certainly based on this very WP article, so the link there from here is a lovely example of recursion. Jbening (talk) 01:15, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Some relevant page history

I've moved some page history that used to be at the title "Farkle" to Talk:Farkle/Old history. Graham87 10:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Farkling in Moosylvania is different. No dice are involved. We circulated a petition in the early 60s to help create Moosylvania where the sport of farkling was described: it consisted of two people standing some small distance apart and clubbing each other with maces. I wish I had more details, but it was not my petition. It did reference Jaywardland, though. 70.58.201.129 (talk) 19:30, 11 February 2011 (UTC)Richard Brady

I'm curious--do we leave juvenile nonsense on talk pages, or delete it from there like we would from an article?Jbening (talk) 22:47, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Farkle's Dilemma

If the player has scored all six dice, they have "hot dice" and may continue their turn with a new throw of all six dice, adding to the score they have already accumulated. However you are then faced with "Farkle's Dilemma". If none of the dice score in any given throw, the player has "farkled" and all points for that turn are lost. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dapntman (talk • contribs) 02:06, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

The merge of variations is a disaster

It's not possible to read the article and be able to learn one variation as the different variations are mashed together. BakkiZ (talk) 04:25, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Dice 10000 into Farkle

These games are very similar, sometimes identical, and often treated as equivalent -- for example this study describes them as the same game. The rules described are very similar. Given that there are few sources generally and no clear distinctions between the two games, and that Greed has already been merged into Farkle, the two articles should be merged. I'd say Farkle should be the correct title because this was what was decided in the case of Greed, and because the only reliable sources I can find refer to Farkle, and it's the modern commercialized form of the game.

Edit: The Pocket Farkel FAQ refers to Dice 10,000 as another name for Farkle -- they appear to be different names (I don't know if the names correlate with variations) with a game that has accumulated variations by being passed down by families over 400 years since arriving in the 1600s. So also, historically at least these are the same. Mrfoogles (talk) 08:42, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Pinging recent editors: @Coeusin @Toweli @Jbening @BakkiZ @BGA Player @Megalomaniaman Mrfoogles (talk) 08:48, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

@BakkiZ Mrfoogles (talk) 17:34, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

@Mrfoogles, I'm not sure honestly. I also was unable to find sources for Dice 10k, so maybe just BLAR it to here and cite it as another name for Farkle at the lead, simply. If you have any RS, then a merge is fine IMO. Coeusin (talk) 09:13, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't right now, although that doesn't mean they don't exist. There is a self-published book (look in the history of this page) I added once before realizing it was, although it cites Wikipedia. The paper mentioned at least mentions the name, which is helpful. You might be right to just redirect it. Mrfoogles (talk) 09:20, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, 10000 is a variant of Farkle (Farkle sometimes has 15000 as point limit). It is commonly called "10000" or "Dix Mille" (10000 in French). It is definitely not called "Dice 10000". So, renaming to "10000 (dice game)" and redirect to the Farkle article would be my preferred solution. But I'm just a Wikipedia newbie... BGA Player (talk) 09:28, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd say put it on 10,000 (disambiguation) and just leave Dice 10000 as a redirect, though -- even if it's not really called that, it won't hurt anyone. Mrfoogles (talk) 16:38, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Update: found another study here mentioning "Fargo", a game similar to Farkle/Dix Mille/etc. with notable differences. It mentions that Farkle is one of the most popular of the ensemble, which helps support the idea in my opinion that if would be a good merge target. I think we also kind of have to decide how much rules difference we're willing to allow in one article -- the dilemma is that there are a number of minor differences, but no RS appear to exist for most of the games. Mrfoogles (talk) 16:48, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Mrfoogles. I see I proposed the same thing back in 2007, though I only discovered that just now, looking at the Dice 10000 talk page. Some thoughts:

• If one possible outcome is to merge Dice 10000 into Farkle, this proposal should be published on the Dice 10000 talk page, and top/recent editors of that article should be pinged.
• The main argument for Farkle being the merged-into article is that the article is much longer and better organized (IMO), and has sources. The lack of sources in the Dice 10000 article could indicate that there are few or no sources with that name available, as Coeusin suggests, while there are a good number of sources with the name Farkle.

• Arguments for keeping the Dice 10000 article include:

• Google searches for Farkle dice vs. dice 10000 (as reported on Google Trends) have roughly equal frequency.

• The Dice 10000 article is actually viewed almost twice as many times per month as the Farkle article, and has 86 watchers to 61 for Farkle. So it's not like that article is a neglected backwater of Wikipedia. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with the Dice 10000 article being so much shorter and generally less well-tended. Maybe a lot of people remember having played a dice game with a winning score of 10000, but don't remember the name?

• The Dice 10000 article does describe somewhat different rules. In particular, there is no equivalent in sourced Farkle rules of the "progressive" scoring variant in Dice 10000. However, there's no source for that in the Dice 10000 article, so that may merely be an instance of WP:MADEUP. I wouldn't want to see that rule variant added to the Farkle article without a good source.

• IMO, the Dice 10000 article suffers from not having one or more editors that have taken it in hand, imposing a clearer structure on it and vetting edits by less experienced Wikipedians. I note that over half of the edits to the article have been by IP addresses, and only one top editor has edited the article at all recently. On the flip side, I see that I have myself made 2/3rds of the edits to the Farkle article and am responsible for almost half of the content. So to avoid a WP:OWN situation, I'm not going to express an overall opinion on this proposal. Jbening (talk) 16:58, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I pinged a few of the most recent editors on Dice 10000, and there's a merge tag on the article; I could add it to the talk page as well, but it's not usual practice. I'd say yeah, add the progressive variant as a variation if a good source mentioned it. Mrfoogles (talk) 17:13, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Some unreliable sources removed from the page

These are not useful for sourcing, but were apparently used to find variations to list (unsourced) in lower sections of the article. They are:

References

Mrfoogles (talk) 17:30, 26 November 2024 (UTC)