There’s something gratifying about watching a long, winding chain of dominoes toppling until all of them have fallen. Whether the chains are being played in bustling city squares or quiet village homes, dominoes promote teamwork and camaraderie among players. They also serve as a reminder that we all live in a world connected by one another, regardless of linguistic or geographical boundaries.
Dominoes are rectangular blocks, about the size of a thumb, with from one to six spots or dots on each face. Each side of a domino has a value, indicated by pips. A double, for example, may have a value of either 3 or 5, and both ends of a triple are usually marked with one or more pips. In the most common form of the game, a set contains 28 tiles.
Each player takes turns placing a tile on the table or in front of himself, and then drawing the number of pieces permitted by the rules of the game to complete his hand. The player who draws the highest domino begins play. If a tie exists, the winner may choose to draw new hands or continue the current game with his existing hand.
When players draw a piece, they place it on edge in front of themselves so the other players can see its value. They can then use the tile in their own turn by matching its value to a previous domino laid down on the table, or they can keep it for future use.
There are many different games that can be played with dominoes, but the simplest is to match up adjacent ends of tiles to make a line of three or more consecutive tiles of the same value. The first person to do this wins.
In some domino games, players take turns in a clockwise direction. Each player starts with a single domino in his hand, and each subsequent turn requires him to place a piece on the table that matches an adjacent end of another tile. If he does so, the other player must play a tile that matches that adjacent end of the previously placed domino. Then the next player in turn does the same, and so on.
Some players prefer to count the pips on all the lost players’ remaining tiles at the end of a hand or the game, to determine the winner. This scoring method, however, is not widely used.
Some domino games have very specific rules for counting the number of pips on each losing player’s tiles, and these rules are usually agreed upon beforehand. Other rule variations include allowing a player to bye (take the remaining tiles in a hand) once he has played a double, and allowing a player to count one end of a double (for example, 4-4 counts as only four points). Other rule variants deal with other aspects of the game, such as whether to count the value of each of the players’ remaining tiles, or if players can add the values of their own and opponents’ tiles together to find their score.