Domino is a game in which players compete to lay down all of their tiles. Each domino has a set of identifying marks or dots on one side and is blank or identically patterned on the other.
Traditionally, domino sets were made from ivory, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), or dark hardwood such as ebony, with contrasting black or white pips. More recently, plastic has replaced these natural materials.
Rules
There are many different ways to play domino. Generally, the winner is determined by who has the highest score at the end of the game. Depending on the game, it may be played until a specified number of rounds is reached or until a certain point limit is reached, such as 200 points.
The player who makes the first play may be referred to as the setter, the downer, or the lead. He or she should place his or her domino face up in front of him. Then, he or she should make a line across the center of the table with his or her dominos. The first domino played must be a spinner, meaning it can be played against on all four sides.
If you find that one of the dominoes has a negative bonus tied to it, you can remove this by placing a pawn on top of it. This will prevent the Negative Bonus from activating and affecting your scoring ability.
Variations
There are many ways to play domino, and the rules vary from game to game. Some games use different scoring methods, while others include blocking and draw. In general, the goal of a domino game is to score more points than your opponent. To do this, you must remove obstacles in the way of your opponent’s plays.
One way to do this is by adding a tile to a train on your turn. If the tile you add has a matching number of pips with an open end on an already-played tile, it will be joined to that train. You can also look for pairs of numbers on the board and mark them as split.
The player who has the lowest number of dominoes at the end of a round wins. Scoring varies, but it is often based on the number of pips in each player’s remaining tiles. Some versions award the winner a target score (such as 100, 200, or more) after a set number of rounds.
Materials
Throughout the centuries, domino pieces have been made from many materials. Today, dominoes are mostly mass-produced from plastics, metals and stone, although there are specialty sets made out of wood.
Some domino sets use natural materials such as bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory or dark hardwoods like ebony with contrasting black or white pips inlaid or painted. These types of dominoes are often more expensive than the standard polymer domino sets.
Dominos have a rectangular shape and are usually twice as long as they are wide, to make them stable enough to stand upright. The identity-bearing face of each domino is divided into two squares, with an arrangement of dots or pips that represent numbers (either one through six or zero). Blank or identically patterned faces are also common. The pips are usually uniformly molded or drilled, and the color of each piece can be either white with black pips or black with white pips.
Scoring
The score in domino is determined by the total number of spots on each domino. The winner is the player whose dominos match an open end of the line and have the highest total pips count. This is usually a multiple of five.
Dominoes with a spinner may have two or four sides, allowing them to join to either of the adjacent dominoes. Identifying the best way to remove obstacles can be tricky because dominoes often have many possible combinations of matches. A good strategy is to look for the domino that will be played on a particular pair of spaces and mark the other available neighbours as split.
In some games, the winner is determined by counting the total number of points in the opponents’ hands. The first player to reach a set number of points (often 61) wins the game. Some players also collect points based on the number of dominoes in their opponents’ hands that they can play onto their own trains.
