notes toward a dice game

"6s, 7s, 8s, and 9s Are Wild”

Given the unwieldy name, it is considered appropriate for experienced players merely to call this game of manners “Sixes.” Novices still should use the entire name in order to avoid embarrassment.

SET UP: "6s, 7s, 8s, and 9s Are Wild" is played with two 6-sided dice. Each player takes turns rolling both dice simultaneously, generating a result. This act is called “taking a turn.” The result is a totaling of the two numbers showing on the top face of the dice. In the example below, the result would be 7 (1 + 6):

Cocked dice must be re-rolled. Depending upon a result and the player’s decision of what to do with it, a turn may consist of multiple consecutive rolls. It bears mentioning that a flat and balanced surface such as a tabletop or floor is necessary for fair and satisfactory play. Even between close friends, heated arguments over the result of a roll will inevitably come from playing upon uneven or tilted surfaces such as an unmade bed or airplane seat.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of "6s, 7s, 8s, and 9s Are Wild" is uncertain. Much has been published and distributed informally on this subject. Presumably a player strives to perform as many rolls of the dice as possible in a single turn. However, the number of rolls is neither tracked nor scored in any way. Categorically, even informal scoring is considered gauche. Even more curiously, the "best possible roll" (6 + 5, a.k.a. “Electric Elevens”) unfortunately results in the roller losing his or her turn. Of course, upon rolling Electric Elevens, one’s enthusiasm about rolling the “best possible roll” overcomes one’s disappointment in losing one’s turn. Given that rolls of 6, 7, 8, or 9 are wild, any of these rolls can be declared to be Electric Elevens, the "best possible roll," but this seldom happens. Wild rolls, as well as doubles (the same number appearing on the faces of both dice after a roll), give the roller another turn, so it can be argued that the best possible roll is actually a 6, 7, 8, 9, or any doubles. However, this is untrue. Only a "natural" roll of Electric Elevens (6+ 5 or 5 + 6) is truly the “best possible roll,” and in a way that no one should ask questions about. But this is something of a digression from the essential topic of the game’s objective.

Absent both a system of scoring and an endgame or decisive conclusion, "6s, 7s, 8s, and 9s Are Wild" may wholly lack an objective and, in this, not actually be a game at all. Despite this lack of an objective or plans to develop one, players seem to feel that an indeterminate sense of a deeply satisfying objective may arise or coalesce within one during extended play.

On Nines and the Possibility of Wildness

Obviously, the wildness of 6s, 7s, and 8s is straightforward. However, although the relationship between 9s and wildness – i.e. whether or not they are wild (and they are wild) – is known, there has been little in the way of field documentation on the subject. Consider this an effort at a brief reportage that is not intended to be comprehensive.

It has come to be known that 9s are wild in exactly the instances when 9s are not wild; and that in those exceptional cases when 9s are determined to be wild, they are in reality not wild. The expression to use in these periods of play is "not wild." Inversely, when 9s are wild, they are said to be wild and thus not wild, for when a 9 is not wild it has become the custom for all involved to behave exactly as if the 9 was not wild, i.e. nonchalantly and even carelessly.

A controversy has recently erupted over this between select initiates and experienced spectators who claim to have seen 9s, over the course of extended play "turn wild" or "go wild." Though the majority of these claimants are generally disreputable, unwashed cads, one former runner-up-to-the-champion (since retired) has stated in the gaming periodicals that he had perfected an art of concentration that enabled him to see non-wild 9s as wild during the course of play, giving him what was tantamount to a stranglehold on play. The result, unfortunately for him, was always a loss, but frequently its very circumstances reclassified the loss, rendering him victorious. (In that games are neither particularly "lost" or "won," there is a lot of play in the idea of whether this former runner-up-to-the-champion had developed anything at all, as must be allowed.)

Considering these vagaries it is hardly surprising that players consider the rolling of 9s to be somewhat rude of late. Rogue amateurs will still revel in a 9 as a goat might revel on an unmowed heath, but in professional and certain secret leagues and tourneys, disqualifications or sanctions have been at least discussed, and are occasionally implemented as sideways glances, subtle gestures incorporated into the raising of a drink to one's mouth, or inexplicable actions committed years after the playing of a particular game has been stopped.

It does not take a purist to recognize the indeterminate wildness of 9s as a point of destabilization that could collapse the entire game in upon itself, turning the honored Ring of Champions into a debtor's prison. But what choice is there but to press on?