A domino is a thumb-sized, rectangular block with one or more ends bearing from zero to six spots or pips. A complete set of dominoes has 28 unique tiles.
Before each game, players draw seven dominoes for their hand. The remainder of the tiles, called the stock, are placed in a separate area and may be drawn later if needed.
Rules
There are a lot of different games that you can play with dominoes, but most of them share some common rules. The objective of most of them is to play all of your dominoes and block your opponent’s. Some also involve scoring points based on the value of the dominoes that you have left in your hand.
The first player starts by choosing one of his dominoes and placing it on the table, then passes the rest to the person on his left. The next player repeats the process, and so on. Players continue this pattern until a 6×6 square is complete. There are also oriental connecting domino games where the tiles begin stacked and the goal is to remove accessible dominoes from the map.
On your turn, you can play a domino only if it has an available number at the end of its long side or if it matches an existing domino that’s already on the table. You can also draw extra dominoes if you can’t play any of the ones in your hand.
Materials
Dominoes can be made from a variety of materials. The most popular are plastics, metals and wood. Many modern mass produced domino sets are molded from plastics. They are also available in various colors and designs.
The domino is a thumbsized, rectangular block with a face that is blank or patterned. It also bears a pattern of dots or “pips” that are similar to the spots on a die. These pips indicate that the domino is a number or symbol and distinguish it from a blank domino, which is marked with a zero.
The DOMINO system is ideally suited for board, rail and stile joints, whether narrow or wide, delicate or solid workpieces. It can be used for frame and shelving joints, as well as flexible flat and corner knock down connectors – all without the need for complex adjustments or measurement. In addition, the DOMINO joining machine allows you to position the second routed mortise precisely at three different distances from a reference edge.
Variations
Dominoes are similar to playing cards in that they have a number of spots on each face. The spots, called pips, are either marked with a number or blank. The numbers on the pips are used to represent different values.
Many domino games involve connection-type layouts. Generally, each player adds one domino to the line of play and then extends it with another domino that matches at the open end. When the lines of play touch, players score.
Several domino connection games involve a rule that requires the exposed ends of connected tiles to have a specific number of dots. These rules can differ from game to game.
Some domino games also have special doubles that act as spinners. A spinner can be played on any side and may cause the line of play to branch out. Matador and Chicken Foot are examples of this type of game. In addition to these, there are a number of specialized domino games that can be used for specific academic purposes. For example, students can use a Domino Coins game to practice adding and subtracting, or they can work on prime and composite numbers with a Domino More/Less game.
Scoring
In many domino games, the players are competing to win a certain number of points at the end of a round. To achieve this goal, the opposing players must add up the pips on all their dominoes (rounded to the nearest five).
Most domino games are played in line of play. Each player takes turns adding tiles to the line of play, according to the rules of the game. Normally, each domino has a value expressed as a number of dots on each side (called ends).
Dominoes may also have a blank face, or no pips at all. The number of pips on each domino is known as the rank or weight, and a higher ranking tile has more pips than a lower one. Dominoes are usually twice as long as they are wide. This is helpful for arranging them and makes them easy to re-stack after use. A double domino that can be played on four sides is called a spinner, and some scoring systems use them to score multiples of three or five.
