Domino is a type of game that requires skill, planning and execution. It is a great way to spend time with family or friends and to challenge your strategic skills. The rules for domino games vary from one region to another, but most of them have similar fundamentals.
In the simplest form, players begin with a fixed number of dominoes in their hand and then place these, edge to edge, against each other so that the adjacent faces match or complete a given total. The resulting line is called the layout, string or line of play. During the course of a game, new dominoes may be added to the line of play by “byeing” them from the stock. Once a player has played all the dominoes in his hand, he declares “no more”, or “knocks,” and the game ends.
Many games of domino are won by the first player to reach a specified point, called the dead zone. This is normally accomplished by a pair of players alternating turns, with the winner being the partner whose total of all spots on his dominoes at that moment is least. The dead zone is a specific area of the table where no other player can make a play, and it is typically indicated by placing a domino in such a position that it completely blocks any possibility of making a play on either side.
Domino games also offer the opportunity to make artistic arrangements of the dominoes, forming lines that can be as simple or elaborate as desired. This art can be as simple as drawing a line with an arrow at the end, or it can include curved lines, grids that form pictures when they fall and 3D structures like towers and pyramids. Professional domino artist Hevesh has thousands of these creations on her YouTube channel, and she has worked with movie studios and celebrities to create domino setups that involve hundreds of thousands of dominoes. Her largest works take several nail-biting minutes to fall, and they are carefully designed using the laws of physics.
The most common domino sets have a total of double-nine (91 tiles) or double-12 (162 tiles) dominoes, and each of these has an additional three pips on one end. These enlarged dominoes are commonly referred to as extended domino sets, and they allow more combinations of ends in the line of play.
As Domino’s CEO, Doyle adhered to the company’s core values, including the value of listening to employees. This led to a more relaxed dress code and a new leadership training program, and it also helped to create innovative ways for customers to order pizzas, such as texting or integrating with Apple CarPlay.
While dominoes are usually made of wood or a polymer material, they can also be produced from a variety of natural materials: bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory and dark hardwoods such as ebony, with contrasting black or white pips inlaid or painted on. Sets made from these natural materials have a unique, luxurious feel and can be very expensive.