Learn To Play Domino

Domino, a  game basically using tiles or bones,  originated from China in the early 13th century. From its oriental origins, a more contemporary and popular version of the game was introduced in the mid 18th century by the Italians. Domino has been a classic favorite game the world over and is currently enjoying the same status in its latest online Dominoqq version.

Domino is normally played with 28 rectangular tiles or bones. Each domino tile is divided by a line running through the middle into 2 equal spaces (squares) in which are installed numbers from 0 to 6. The value of either side is equal to the number of pips or spots on them. The tiles carry all the possible amalgamations with these numbers.

Domino is played with either 2 or 4 players. It starts with the participants shuffling all of the tiles face-down on the table and distributing 7 domino tiles to each. The designated first player places the first  domino tile face up on the table to start the game.

The player who begins the game is usually selected by having all the players pick out a domino tile and the one who picks the domino tile with the highest value gets to play first.

After the first player places the starting domino tile, the rest of the participants start placing theirs in turns in the direction of play.

Each participant should place a tile where the amount of pips (or spots) on at least one half of the particular domino tile matches the number of pips on the exposed ends of the domino tile chain (also called the layout). If they do not possess a domino tile that matches, then they have to pick up more tiles until they get one that can. Another option would be to “pass” for the said round and wait for the next one when they hopefully have a domino tile to place. The first player to be able to place all  their tiles wins and scores points based on the number of pips on the other participants’ remaining tiles.

For the subsequent games, the role of the first participant rotates in the agreed-upon direction of play.

The general rules for playing a domino tile are:

The domino tiles are placed on the table face up in a line. The line may be bent in various directions for as long as it still fits within the table.

• The two ends of the line are the only locations where a domino tile can be connected.
• A participant can only place one domino tile during their turn.
• A domino tile can be connected at the end of a line only when one of the halves of this particular domino tile has the same number of pips as the end where it is connected.

A game is considered ended when:

• A participant connects their last domino tile on the line.
• All participants pass, meaning, nobody has a domino tile to be connected to the line.

Scoring in Domino is as follows:

If all participants have equal outcomes, no one wins for the game, and nobody scores points.

If a participant has a lower outcome than the rest of the players, they win the game.

The winning participant scores a number of points as determined by adding the outcome of all the losing participants and then extracting the outcome of the winning participant.