How to play Dominoes

Dominoes is one of the oldest table games in the world, and still one of the most played: on café terraces, in park pavilions and at kitchen tables everywhere. The rules take a minute to learn. Each tile has two numbers, and you add a tile to the line by matching one of the numbers at its open ends. The skill is in everything else: which tile to keep and which to get rid of, when to block your opponent out of a number, how to read what the others are holding from the moments they cannot play, and in the partnership game, how to help a partner you cannot talk to.

How to play on skill.games

When you open the game, the settings appear. Choose a difficulty (Easy, Normal, Hard or Crazy) and a game: Draw, Block, All Fives or Kozel. Then press PLAY.

• The table: your tiles stand in a row at the bottom. In the two-player games your opponent, Lily, sits at the top with her tiles face down; in Kozel your partner Max sits at the top, Lily on your left and Zoe on your right. Each name shows how many tiles that player still holds and lights up on their turn.
• The top line says whose turn it is. Below it, one chip shows the match score and the target, and another shows how many tiles are left in the boneyard, the count of the two ends in All Fives, or the points carried over in Kozel.
• Playing a tile: on your turn the tiles that fit glow and lift, and the rest are dimmed. Tap a tile that fits only one end and it is played at once. If it fits both ends, tap it to pick it up, then tap the glowing end where you want it. You can also drag a tile onto an end. A tile that fits nowhere shakes, and the top line says why.
• The line of play starts in the middle and snakes across the table, turning at the edges, so the whole layout always fits your screen, in portrait or landscape. The dashed slots at each end show where the next tile goes, and the tile played last has a gold rim.
• Drawing: in Draw and All Fives, when nothing fits, the boneyard opens. Tap any face-down tile to draw it, and keep drawing until you get one that fits. When you can neither play nor draw, you pass automatically.

After each hand everyone's tiles are turned face up and a sheet shows the pips left in each hand, the points for the hand and the match totals; press NEXT HAND to continue. The menu button in the top-left corner pauses, starts a new game or turns the sound off. The game is saved as you play, so you can press CONTINUE later. At the end, the results screen shows the score, the hands won and your statistics, which are kept separately for each game and difficulty.

Rules

The tiles. A double-six set: 28 tiles, every pair of numbers from 0 (blank) to 6 once, including the seven doubles from 0:0 to 6:6. The pips on a tile are its value; 6:6 is worth 12.

The deal. In the two-player games each player gets 7 tiles and the other 14 stay face down. In Kozel all 28 are dealt, 7 to each player.

Opening. In the first hand of a two-player match, the player holding the highest double must open with it (if no double was dealt, the heaviest tile). In Kozel the first hand is opened with 1:1. In every later hand, the winner of the previous hand opens with any tile.

Matching. Players take turns. You add one tile to either end of the line, and the number touching must match the end it joins: 6:3 goes on an open 6, leaving a 3. Doubles are laid across the line. If you can play, you must; the turn then passes on.

When you can't play. - Block: you pass. The 14 undealt tiles are never used. - Draw and All Fives: you draw from the boneyard, one tile at a time, until you can play. If the boneyard is empty, you pass. - Kozel: there is no boneyard; you pass.

The end of a hand. A hand ends when a player plays their last tile ("domino"), or when nobody can play at all: the line is blocked. In Kozel a blocked hand is called a fish.

Scoring in Draw and Block. The player who goes out scores the pips left in the opponent's hand. In a blocked hand, the player with fewer pips wins and scores the difference between the two hands; with equal pips nobody scores. The first to 100 points wins the match.

All Fives. After every play, add up the open ends: if the total is 5, 10, 15 or 20, the player who made it scores that many points at once. A double lying across an end counts both its halves, so 6:6 at an end counts 12, and a single first tile counts both its numbers (5:5 or 6:4 opening scores 10). When the hand ends, the winner also scores the opponent's pips (in a blocked hand, the difference) rounded to the nearest 5. The first to 150 wins, at once, even in the middle of a hand.

Kozel. You and Max play as a pair against Lily and Zoe, sitting crosswise, and play goes round the table. When a player goes out, their pair wins the hand and the other pair writes down the pips left in both its hands; a hand holding only 0:0 counts 25. In a fish, each pair adds up its pips; the lighter pair wins and the heavier pair writes its total. If both pairs hold the same, nobody writes ("eggs"), and those points are added to whatever the losers of the next hand write. Only the losing pair ever writes points, so a low score is good: the first pair to reach 101 is the goat and loses the match. Losing while the winners are still on 0 is a "dry goat". The next hand is opened by the player who went out, or by the one who made the fish.

Strategy tips

• Shed weight early. The pips left in your hand are what the opponent scores, so play heavy tiles and doubles while you can. A double can only go on its own number, and an unplayed 6:6 is 12 points against you.
• Keep your options. Before playing, look at what each choice leaves at the ends. Prefer moves that leave numbers you still hold, so you will have a reply next turn.
• Watch the passes. When a player draws or passes, they hold nothing for either end. Remember those numbers and try to bring them back to the ends.
• Count the numbers. Each number appears on seven tiles. Once you can see that the others are nearly out of a number, putting it on both ends can lock them out, or block the hand while you hold the lighter tiles.
• All Fives: count before you play. Look at the ends' total and play the tile that makes a multiple of 5. Then check what it leaves: an end total of 9 or 14 invites the opponent to score with a single tile.
• Kozel: play for your partner. Don't close the numbers your partner has just passed on. Keep the numbers the next opponent is missing on the ends, and when your partner is about to go out, let them.

Difficulty levels

In the two-player games the difficulty sets how well Lily plays. In Kozel your partner Max always plays at least at Hard, and at Crazy plays Crazy; the difficulty you choose sets how well your opponents play.

• Easy: plays any tile that fits.
• Normal: gets rid of its heaviest tile first, and in All Fives takes the best score it can see.
• Hard: weighs every move: heavy tiles and doubles out, tiles that can follow kept, numbers the opponent has passed on kept on the ends, the partner's needs respected, and in All Fives the score it makes against the reply it gives away.
• Crazy: the strongest. It remembers every tile played and every draw and pass, works out what each player cannot be holding, imagines many deals that fit, and plays each candidate tile to the end of the hand before choosing.

Modes

• Draw: two players, drawing from the boneyard; first to 100. The usual game, and the default.
• Block: two players, no drawing; first to 100.
• All Fives: two players, scoring multiples of 5 during play; first to 150.
• Kozel: four players in two pairs; the first pair to 101 is the goat.