A domino is a small rectangular wood or plastic block with a face and a back. The face is blank or marked with an arrangement of spots, commonly called pips, similar to the marks on a die. The number of pips on each end is used to distinguish between matching pieces and the absence of pips indicates a zero. Dominoes are molded, drilled and painted. They are usually colored white with black pips and, more rarely, black with white pips. In some sets, the pips are added or subtracted to change the total value of the piece for scoring purposes.
Dominos are used for games that involve scoring by accumulating points or blocking opponents’ play. Most scoring games are played with a deck of cards, but there are also many games that use dominos. These include blocking games like matador, chicken foot and Mexican train. Other games, such as bergen and muggins, use dominoes to duplicate card games that were popular in areas with religious prohibitions against playing cards.
The first player begins play by drawing the number of dominoes required for his or her hand, usually seven. The remaining dominoes, known as the boneyard, remain face down on the table and can be drawn from later if a player is unable to play any of his or her hand. The player then plays a domino from his or her hand by positioning it on the table so that its end touches one or more of the exposed ends of a domino chain. This is sometimes called posing, leading, or setting the bone.
Each domino is numbered on its exposed ends. Normally, the numbers are arranged in suits: each double is part of a suit, and each single is part of two different suits. The number of pips on each exposed end is used to identify the suit. The pips on the exposed ends of a domino chain are added together to determine its total value, which is used for scoring.
As a domino is played, the chain grows. The players must then position the next domino in the chain so that its exposed end matches the end of another domino, and so on. The game continues until the chain reaches its end or the players reach a point at which they are unable to advance. The winner is the partner whose combined sum of all the pips on their remaining dominoes is the lowest.
Some players collect dominoes to build a collection of their favorite pieces or to try to beat their opponents’ collections. Others play a variety of different games with their dominoes, each having its own rules and strategy. In most of these games, the more dominoes a player has on the table at any given time, the higher his or her score will be. In addition, players may earn points for other configurations of tiles or moves, such as blocking other players’ play or emptying their hands.