Bart and Sue came around this weekend, and as always happens when they come to visit (or we visit them) we played a lot of games. This time around we taught them dominoes on which there is – a little web hunting reveals – about a dozen variations, most of which centre on what should happen when one player has got rid of all of their bones (dominoes).
Most authorities insist that play should continue, with that player picking up new pieces from the bone pile (the pile of dominoes that weren’t dished out at the beginning), and I’d agree with this, as there seems to be no benefit in them getting rid of everything when they could go on and win themselves some more points by picking up and playing on. It’s also doubly illogical to stop at that point when there is no penalty to the other players in still having bones in their hands.
So, using that as our base and taking common points from all the other guides we read, the definitive rules of play run like this:
Playing
The 28 bones (dominoes) are placed face down on the table and mixed up. Each player then takes five bones, leaving the others face down in what is now known as the bone pile.
Player one places one of their dominoes on the table, player two adds one of their own by matching up one end of their tile with an end of equal value to the tile already on the table. If they can’t do this, they pick up from the bone pile, and can play the domino they have just picked up immediately if possible. If not, play passes on to player three (or back to player one in a two-player game) and they add another domino at one end or the other. This continues until all of the dominoes are used.
If you can place a tile where both ends are the same value – say double-three – you put it across the chain of play so that one side, rather than an end, is touching one of the existing tiles. Players can then place dominoes coming out of the other side or either end of that piece.
Scoring
Scores are calculated throughout the course of the game by adding up the number of dots on the end of each run of dominoes. When they total a multiple of five, the player that laid the domino that made that total would have that number added to their running total. For example, let’s imagine the first three hands of a game go like this:
Player one opens with a tile showing four / one. This totals five, and as there are no other tiles on the table those numbers are on either end of the chain of dominoes in play, so player one scores five.
Player two adds a tile showing one / three by putting it so the one touches the one on the tile already laid on the table. The two ends of the chain are now three and four, which add up to seven, so they don’t score anything.
Player three adds a tile showing three / six by putting it down so that the three touches the three already on the table. The two ends are now four and six, which totals 10, which is what this player scores.
If someone lays a double – say a four / four sideways on touching the four / one laid by player one, then those dots total eight and must be added to the number used when calculating the score. If anyone then adds a domino to the chain by touching this double, its score is no longer counted, and once again you just count the number of dots on each end of the chain.
Do you play dominoes in a different way to this? Leave your alternative rules in the comments below.
Credit: domino photo by Franco Folini
