Domino is a type of game that’s played with a variety of sets, including Double-Six dominoes and Double-15 dominoes. Several variations of this popular game have been created, and they vary greatly in character. Most are adaptations of card games. But some are new and feature novel mechanisms.
A domino is a small, rectangular game piece that’s twice as wide as its thickness. It’s traditionally made of ivory or bone, and it has markings on one side. The most common are numbered and bear identifying pips that are used to determine which of the tiles belong to a particular suit. Occasionally, other materials are used for the domino pieces. These include silver-lip ocean pearl oyster shell and bone. Some large sets are based on Arabic numerals instead of pips.
When playing a traditional “standard” or “block” domino game, each player draws nine tiles. Each player is allowed to choose one tile from each suit, and the players take turns laying their dominoes on the table. To make the game more exciting, some versions have you chip out one of your own pieces when the other player doesn’t. You can also place a tile on the opposite side of the board, to change the direction of the line.
Other games allow you to play doubles, or to lay them in cross-ways in the layout. In these cases, the doubles are placed perpendicular to the line, and each player must add another tile to the end of the chain that touches the double. Alternatively, you can create an “L” in the layout by placing a tile at a right angle.
You can also play a version of the game called the Draw Game, which is played with a double-nine domino set. This version is similar to the traditional block game, but the goal is to draw two tiles that make up the total number of pips on the board.
The first player chooses a tile, which can either be horizontal or vertical. He or she then plays that tile on the table. The second player then matches the edge of the first domino with a part of the first tile. If this matches, the player is said to have “stitched up” the end of the domino.
If the second player doesn’t have a matching tile, he or she can take a sleeping domino. In some versions, all four sides of a sleeping domino are considered open, but in other games they are not. After the first player finishes his or her hand, the other players are allowed to draw from their own unused tiles.
The final player in a round is the player with the most tiles that match the total number of pips on the table. Depending on the rules of the game, a player can win the round if the number of pips on the last domino reaches the target score. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the game is over.