Unlike most drinking games, Five-Card Yak allows card-playing skill and creativity to improve play, which makes for a dynamic game that is fun, even without alcohol. The rules described here allow this traditional drinking game to be played without drinking. Instead of alcoholic beverages, tokens are used to track progress in the game. These tokens can be poker chips, pennies, or whatever is available to easily provide a count. There are two ways to play.
Each player is given the same number of tokens (or alternatively, more experienced players can be handicapped by giving them fewer tokens than other players). Whenever the rules require the players to “drink,” each surrenders a token to the pot for each “drink” taken. Players who run out of tokens “pass out” and are eliminated from the game. Play continues until only two players remain, in which case either the player with the most tokens wins or the pair continue to play (possibly using the alternative rules for two players) until only one player is left, who is declared the winner.
This variant allows for a more serious, tournament style of play. Losing players are removed and cannot disrupt latter phases of the game.
All tokens in play are placed in the “keg,” a central pot of tokens. Players “take a drink” by taking a token from the pot. The game ends when the last token in the pot is taken (the keg “runs dry”), and the player with the lowest number of tokens wins.
This variant remains true to the social aspect of Five-Card Yak, since all players remain in the game until the end. It also facilitates the creation of new rules, since rules do not need to consider that the number of players in the game will change.
The number of tokens used will determine the length of the game. By random chance, one can expect that about 13 tokens will be used on average for each deal; although, aggressive play and new rules will likely increase this number. A good rule of thumb is to expect that 100 tokens will last about seven or eight deals.
Periodically transferring an equal number of tokens from each player to or from the pot, depending on the variant, can allow for longer games to be played with fewer tokens. Using several types of tokens with different values—e.g., one-drink, three-drink, and five-drink tokens—can also reduce the number of tokens needed to play.
Because Yak is a quick-scoring game, a cribbage board is an excellent way to keep score in lieu of using physical tokens. This type of scorekeeping is particularly well suited for a two-player game of Pass Out, with the loser being the player who reaches the prearranged score (typically 60 for once around or 120 for twice around); however, two cribbage boards can serve four players just fine.
Points (representing the “drinks”) are scored in the same way as Cribbage, with the back peg being placed ahead of the forward peg by the number holes corresponding to the number of points scored. However, it is traditional to score the one point used "to make up the difference" (i.e., when scoring the penalty for taking a trick after having been penalized for the previous trick) by simply moving the forward peg ahead one hole. This has the advantage that, in the absence of additional penalties from new rules, the distance between the two pegs is always the same as the number of the trick in the hand.
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