Random Fun and Games: Go Ahead, Take a Chance! 129

looking at the value in the first dice element and comparing it to

the value in the fourth dice element. If the array is sorted, and

these are the same, we have four of a kind.

To test for three of a kind, we add another elif statement,

and we put the three-of-a-kind test after the four-of-a-kind test so

that we test for three of a kind only if there’s no five of a kind and

no four of a kind; we want the highest hand to be reported. There

are three possible cases of three of a kind if we’re working with

sorted dice: the first three dice match, the middle three, or the last

three. In code, that would be:

elif (dice[0] == dice[2]) or (dice[1] == dice[3]) or (dice[2] == dice[4]):

print("Three of a kind")

Now that we can test for various winning hands in our dice

game, let’s add the game loop and the dice a r ray.

Putting It All Together

Here’s the complete FiveDice.py program. Type the code in a new

window or download it from http://www.nostarch.com/teachkids/.

FiveDice.py

import random

Game loop

keep_going = True
while keep_going:

"Roll" five random dice

u dice = [0,0,0,0,0] # Set up an array for five values dice[0]-dice[4]
v for i in range(5): # "Roll" a random number from 1-6 for all 5 dice
w dice[i] = random.randint(1,6)
x print("You rolled:", dice) # Print out the dice values

Sort them

y dice.sort()

Check for five of a kind, four of a kind, three of a kind

Yahtzee - all five dice are the same

if dice[0] == dice[4]:
print("Yahtzee!")

FourOfAKind - first four are the same, or last four are the same

elif (dice[0] == dice[3]) or (dice[1] == dice[4]):
print("Four of a kind!")

ThreeOfAKind - first three, middle three, or last three are the same

elif (dice[0] == dice[2]) or (dice[1] == dice[3]) or (dice[2] == dice[4]):
print("Three of a kind")
keep_going = (input("Hit [Enter] to keep going, any key to exit: ") == "")