Your first game of Dominoes

Set up

The game uses a double-six set of 28 tiles, each with two halves marked with 0 to 6 pips. Two to four people play. You choose the game: Block, Draw or All Fives. Each player takes seven tiles. With four players in Draw or All Fives, they take fewer. In Draw and All Fives, the tiles left over are the boneyard. In the first hand, whoever holds the highest double plays it first.

Your first turn

Play a tile whose half matches one of the open ends of the line on the table. If the end is a 5, you can play any tile with a 5 on it, and the tile’s other half becomes the new end. A double is played crosswise.

If you have no tile that fits, in Draw and All Fives you take tiles from the boneyard until you can play. In Block, or once the boneyard is empty, you pass.

How a hand ends

A hand ends when a player plays their last tile, called going out. It also ends when nobody can play, which is a block. In Block and Draw, the player who goes out scores the pips left in the other hands. In a block, the player with the fewest pips scores the difference. In All Fives, the winner of a hand, by going out or with the fewest pips in a block, scores the pips in the other hands, rounded to the nearest 5, and points also come during play, whenever the open ends add up to a multiple of 5. A game goes to a target score, by default 100 in Block and Draw and 150 in All Fives.

A short example

The open ends are 5 and 2. You play the 5-3. The 3 now becomes the new open end, and the ends are 3 and 2. In All Fives, 3 and 2 add up to 5, so you score 5 points right away.