Some Basic Rules on Dominoes

Line of Play

Many domino games are dependent upon suit matching. In such games, the leader places his domino, then moving on a clockwise direction, the player places his tiles to an available end, and so on, moving leftward around the table with individual players putting more tiles. Tiles with identical amount of pips are added to a free edge of a tile that has already been played.

A line is formed when a tile is matched and played by a player. This pattern of dominoes is known as layout, string or direction of play. So as to keep the tiles from falling off the layout, dominoes may proceed in any direction. Despite the manner of play, the free edges of the last domino played do not change.

There are two ways in which dominoes can be linked to the direction of play: 1) through the direction of play, laterally, the dominoes played from one end to another; or, 2) across the direction of play, transversely, and the dominoes across the identical numbers.

In many of the games in domino, doubles, and solely doubles, are played across the direction of play; singles are laterally played, and the succeeding tile is added after every double that is played, if the double is not a spinner, must be lateral.

Scoring

In majority of the domino games, a fraction of the score is derived from the total value of pips at the edges of the direction of play as the game wears on. If a single domino is played, the two edges of that tile signify the end of the direction of play. For example, if a double five tile is played, the count would be 10. If a couple of dominoes have been utilized, the count is determined by whether the two tiles are in the line of play or a single tile is in the line or opposite the direction of play.

In some domino variations, a score is accumulated only when the score of the edges of the direction of play are multiples of five, or multiples of three, for instance.

Another system of scoring utilized in most variations of domino is to take away the total amount of pips by adding the pips on the remaining tiles in their hands after the conclusion of a hand or the game and then including that number to the score of the winner.