Dominoes are black and white rectangles that are often used for games. They are also known by a variety of nicknames, including bones, cards, tiles, spinners, and tickets.
Dominoes are a classic game that can be played by adults and children alike. They can be set up in rows, stacked, or even 3-D structures.
Origins
Dominoes are one of the oldest tools for game play. They can be used to play a variety of games, including positional and blocking games.
They were first discovered in China during the Yuan Dynasty, but it wasn’t until around the 18th century that they became popular in Europe. During this time, dominoes were made from a variety of materials, including bone, wood, and ivory.
The Chinese domino set consisted of a total of thirty-two pieces, which were designed to represent each possible face of two thrown dice. This differed from the twenty-eight piece Western domino set, which was created during the mid-18th century.
Rules
There are a few basic rules to play domino. These are designed to prevent cheating, make the game run smoothly and help the game flow as it should.
The first rule is to shuffle the tiles and place them face down on the table. This is known as the “boneyard.”
Players draw the correct number of dominoes for that game from this pool and use them to create their hand. This process is repeated until all players have dominoes they need to start playing.
The game then proceeds clockwise until someone can play a domino and win the round. If no one has a playable tile, the game ends as a draw and each player reports their dot count to their opponent.
Materials
Dominoes are small flat rectangular blocks that are used as a gaming object. They are often referred to as bones, pieces, men, stones, or cards and can be made of rigid materials such as wood or bone.
The back of each piece is blank or decorated with a design. The identity-bearing face is divided by a line or ridge into two square halves, each of which is marked with an arrangement of spots, called pips.
A domino’s value, like a die, is represented by its number of pips. The most common domino set is double six (28 tiles), but larger sets are also available.
Variations
There are a number of variations to domino that make use of different tiles and other equipment. These games can be block games where players try to empty their hand of tiles; score-based games in which points are awarded to a player as they play; and trick and trump games that draw inspiration from card games.
The simplest form of domino game is the block game. This uses a double-six set and involves shuffling the tiles face-down to form a ‘boneyard’.
The players then take turns to play single dominoes in a line, matching the value on one half to the value at the end of the line. Some variants, such as Chicken Foot, allow a ‘double’ domino to serve as a’spinner’ at each of the four ends.
Sets
A domino set, also called a deck or pack, is a collection of gaming pieces. It consists of rectangular tiles with lines dividing their faces into two square ends and marked with a number of spots (also called pips or dots) or blank ends with no spots.
The standard domino set consists of 28 tiles, with all combinations of spot counts from zero to six. The game is played by placing the tiles in order.
Some sets of dominoes are larger than others, allowing players to play longer games or more complex layouts. A double-six set contains 28 tiles, a double-nine set 55 tiles, and a double-12 set 91 tiles.
Some sets use more readable Arabic numerals instead of pips to indicate the number of dots on each tile. This makes them easier to read and distinguish between different numbers.