Dominoes are small oblong tiles with sets of dots called pips. Most standard domino sets feature 28 tiles.
A player who has the highest double begins play. Depending on the rules of the game, this tile may be any one of four doubles that can be played on all sides or a spinner.
Rules
In domino, there are four basic types of games: bidding games, blocking games, scoring games and round games. Each type has different rules, but all have the same basic objective of emptying a player’s hand and blocking their opponents. The game ends when a players score passes 101. The winner is the player with the lowest total of pips in their remaining dominoes.
Once the pawns are set up, each player draws seven dominoes from the stock. The person with the highest double starts, although some people prefer to draw lots for the start. The remainder of the dominoes form a boneyard.
A player must play his tiles in a line, joining them to matching ends. A double can only join to two other dominoes with the same number on both sides. If a domino is blocked, the player must mark any available neighbours as split. This way, the other player will know that the double can’t be played on.
Variations
Many different variants of domino can be played. The game can be scored differently as well – some rules use points while others do not. The scoring is usually based on the number of pips on each domino and on whether or not it has a double.
The most popular variations are Mexican Train, Draw and Moon. In Mexican Train, players build a “train” of dominoes that extend from the center of the table outward. The goal is to be the first player to play all of your tiles. If you can’t continue to play, you must draw a tile from the boneyard until you have one that can be played.
Some rules include special bids or unusual rules for the line of play, such as those used in Bendomino, Cyprus and Matador. Other rules may include the use of spinners, and how the line of play branches. A common way to score is to have each player’s open ends add up to a multiple of five.
Materials
Dominoes can be made of a wide variety of materials. Some of the most common are plastics, stone and wood. Some of the more exotic are foam (used for giant domino yard games) and metal.
The original European dominoes were made of animal bones and sometimes ivory. Some sets featured the pips painted in black or white, while others had the pips inlaid. The earliest sets were produced by prisoners-of-war to supplement their pitiful rations.
Modern mass-produced dominoes are made of a number of different polymers, including PVC and ABS. The first manmade plastic, Parkesine (now Xylonite) was also used to make dominoes for a short period of time, but it did not last because it was highly inflammable.
High end domino sets are often made of wood, and may even be hand crafted by a skilled artist. These are generally more expensive than polymer dominoes. In addition, high quality wood dominoes will usually have a felt playing surface to protect the faces and backs of the tiles.
Scoring
The scoring system in domino varies depending on the game. Generally, players score by counting the number of ends of the line of play that total a multiple of five. However, this can be difficult if you have many tiles with the same numbers. In such a situation, you can change the score by raising or dropping a single tile.
You can also change the score by adding up the total number of pips on all the exposed ends of your own tiles. For example, a double that is exposed at both sides can be scored as 8 + 2 = 10.
If a player goes out, they get the value of all the remaining dominoes in other players’ hands. This number is then rounded up to the nearest multiple of five. The winner of the round is the player who has the lowest number of points in his or her hand. The game continues until one player’s score passes 101.
