You can play the new dice game Shoot the Moons at Coral Games. If you want to improve your Shoot the Moons game read on!

Shoot the Moons is a relatively simple game. You roll a total of six dice each and the player with the highest total points win. What is the skill in this, you might ask? Well, if the game had only been about rolling dice, there wouldn’t be any skill at all. But by adding three betting rounds, it comes with a skill component. The fact that some of the information is hidden during the betting introduces yet another element of skill. It opens up the possibility to bluff.

The second part of Shoot the Moons is the odds concept. By posting an ante before joining the game, an initial pot is created. When betting and calling, players compete for this pot. If the pot is large, the incentive to call a bet increases, so as to remain in the fight for the pot. This is called pot odds. As long as there is a slight chance that you will win, it may be correct to call a bet, if the prize is right.

Imagine a situation where you only have seven after two rounds and the opponent fifteen. You now throw a final roll of ten giving you a grand total of seventeen. Your only chance now is to split the pot, which requires that he rolls a double one. The opponent bets. The question here is; should you call? You will most likely not win, but if the pot is big enough, it is worth to call, even in this situation. You can find more on how to calculate this in the section on probabilities.

Skill Elements
The first part of the skill element is to realize where you stand. The key is to understand what the chances are that your opponent has a better hand than you. Applying this to a situation with more than one opponent makes it increasingly complicated. Mastering this is another dimension in the game.

The third dimension is to evaluate the position from the opponent’s point of view. The action of the opponent does reveal some of the information about his/her hidden dice. It is part of the analysis to figure out whether the opponent thinks that he actually has a higher points-count, or if he is bluffing you to believe that.

Probabilities
The basic probability calculation comes down to the likelihood that one of the opponents has a higher pip-count than you. The calculation has two variables:

The hidden dice you have.

The situation prior to the last roll of the dice.

Two players
In a situation with only two players, the calculation is quite simple. To calculate the probability of actually beating the opponent, the hidden dice and the advantage before the roll can be added up. Rolling a seven with a two-point advantage is the same as rolling a nine at an even situation. The probabilities can be viewed like this:

Example: If I roll a five and had a two-point lead, it is a 50% chance that I win.

If I have more than 50% chance to win, it may be wise to put some money in the pot. The problem however is that a bet of course gives the opponent a possibility to raise if he actually has a very good hidden hand.

If you have less than 50% chance to win, it can still be interesting to call a bet. It all comes down to the odds calculation. Let’s say that you roll a four with a one-point lead. According to the table, you have a 22% chance to hold the best hand.

Disregarding the fact that the opponent actually does bet, what shall it take to call this bet? 22% says you will win once and lose 3 ½ times in 4 ½ attempts. This means, that for the call to be profitable, there should be at least 3 ½ times the size of the call in the pot, including the opponents bet.

If we translate the winning probabilities to required odds we get the following table:

Example: If I roll two and had a one point lead and face a €1 bet, there should be at least €17 in the pot to call.

Analysis of the value of the bet
The next component is of course to figure out what the fact that the player has bet means for the definition of his points count. If a player rolled <1,1> he will of course be less likely to make a bet than if he has rolled <6, 6>.

The importance of this depends on the characteristics of the player and the opinion the opponent has formed about you.

More players
When there are more players in the pot, the situation is more complex. Compared to the same situation as in the example with one single opponent, there are some changes to the equation.

For the pot odds calculation, there are more calls, which potentially increase the profit.

There is however a new calculation that must be done to gauge whether an opponent that hasn’t acted yet may or may not actually call, which potentially shifts the pot odds.

An opponent may actually raise after you, completely throwing off the bet versus prize ratio.

You can now be both behind and ahead of different opponents.

This calculation then becomes significantly more complex. The intuitive understanding of this strategy is the key to success in Shoot the Moons. It comes with experience and training. The problem in the calculation of probability is the combination of players with better and worse odds to win.

As help however, there is a basic strategy, which can be used as guidance. The basic strategy reduces the players ahead and behind to one single count, enabling you to calculate the approximate required odds. These are not entirely correct, but will be sufficiently accurate to make a good decision.

The corrections of the odds table for multiple opponents are the following:

The points you are ahead of other players can be summed up and the points you are behind other players can be summed up. A higher maximum points behind makes the situation slightly worse.

Each point you are behind one player is countered by two points ahead.

Two points behind or ahead for a game with two opponents, equals one point on your hidden roll.

Conclusions
The calculations in this document are referring to isolated situations and analyses. It is important to understand that there are a lot of other aspects to winning in the game.

There are so many dimensions of the skill element of the game. Not many people understand and leverage the true complexity of this. By applying common sense, you can still do well enough to enjoy the game.

Click here to play Shoot the Moon at Coral Games