Dominoes

Dominoes is possibly the oldest gaming implement. Domino tiles came to be called dominoes from their resemblance to a half-mask worn in a masquerade called domino.

The rules of basic Dominoes are very simple. There are 28 dominoes, from double-blank to double-six. First the pieces, or "tiles", are shuffled face down and the players, usually four in number select seven dominoes each. The player with the double-six tile starts the game and moving counter-clockwise around the table, players must lay a matching numbered tile on either end of the dominoes chain. Players then take turns playing one domino next to a matching number on one already played. If you can't play, you must pick from the stock, and when the stock is exhausted, you pass. If a player does not have a matching domino, a knuckle rap on the table signals, "pass". The winner is either the first to get rid of all one's dominoes, or the one with the smallest point total when all the players have passed.

There are a variety of games played with dominoes. Some are simple memory games like Concentration, based on the card game of same name. Some domino games are more complex and some are simple solitaire games. There are five major, common domino sets commercially available. They are Double Six, Double Nine, Double Twelve, Double Fifteen, and Double Eighteen—each with their rules of play:

Tien Gow, which literally means Heaven Nine in Cantonese, is a challenging game for four players using thirty-two Chinese domino tiles. Since each hand only starts with eight tiles and up to four tiles can be played in a trick, each round of the game can be very short. The game can be very fast-paced provided the players don't ponder each move for too long. Chinese traditional dominoes are easily obtained from game shops and department stores in the west.

Many Western Domino Games with various playing rules are sometimes omitted from rule books because a lot of the Western domino games are games developed within families or regions and passed down from generation to generation.

According to some historical records, the game of Dominoes was invented in the 12th century by Hung Ming, a Chinese folk hero. It was created for the amusement of his soldiers to help keep them awake during nightly watches.

The Domino Effect means a relatively small occurrence that causes another small occurrence, which then causes another and another like a falling row of dominoes standing one behind the other. The fall of one domino standing on one end will causing the whole row to fall in turn. So the term Domino Effect refers to a chain of events that begins small, but results in a major change.

Domino is the French word for a black and white hood worn by Catholic priests in the winter.

Domino tiles have been made of bone, ivory, plastic, metal, wood, and occasionally are made of cardstock like that for playing cards. The pieces have been called called bones, tiles, muggins, cards, stones, spinners, or just dominoes.

Some of the most popular Western domino games are:

  • Add-Em-Up 50
  • All Fives
  • All Threes
  • Auction Draw
  • Austrian Dominoes
  • Baronet
  • Basic Draw Poker
  • Bead Game
  • Bergen
  • Bingo
  • Bisley
  • Blind Dominoes
  • Blind Hughie
  • Block
  • Block Dominoes
  • Block Dominoes with Spinners
  • Blocking Games Intro
  • Broadway
  • Build Up
  • Bullfighting
  • Canton
  • Caribbean Dominoes
  • Castle Rock
  • Challenge
  • Chicken Foot
  • Chickenfoot
  • Clock
  • Collecting Dominoes
  • Collecting Tens
  • Concentration
  • Cross Dominoes
  • Cuban Dominoes
  • Cyprus
  • Dice and Dominoes
  • Disputing Tens
  • Divide and Conquer
  • Domino Cribbage
  • Domino Euchre
  • Domino Loo
  • Domino Pinochle
  • Domino Poker
  • Domino Pool
  • Domino Roads Domizerka
  • Double Bergen
  • Double Draw
  • Double Takes
  • Double-Hand Dominoes
  • Doubles
  • Draw
  • Draw Dominoes
  • Eighty
  • Eighty-Eight
  • Eighty-Four
  • Eleven Point Black Tile
  • Fair Lucy
  • Fishing
  • Five Up
  • Five-Up
  • Five-Up Solitaire
  • Flower & Scorpion
  • Fortress
  • Forty-Two
  • Fours
  • Freeze Out (War)
  • Games for One Player
  • Gaple
  • Gin Rummy
  • Go Fish
  • Good Neighbors
  • Hearts
  • High Fives
  • Homo Homini Lupus
  • Horse Race
  • Hungarian Dominoes
  • Italian Dominoes
  • Latin American Match Dominoes
  • Leyden
  • Linger Longer
  • Luzon
  • Magic 7
  • Maltese Cross
  • Matador
  • Merry-Go-Round
  • Mexican Flip
  • Mexican Train
  • Moon
  • Muggins
  • Nel-O
  • Network Nos
  • Old Maid
  • One Arm Joe
  • One-Arm Joe
  • Pai Gow
  • Pass
  • Patience
  • Peaks and Pits
  • Pip
  • Plunge
  • Polka Dots
  • RaceHorse
  • Reveille
  • Scoring Games Description
  • Sebastopol
  • Sedma
  • Seven Rocks
  • Sevens
  • Seven-Toed Pete
  • Seventy-Nine
  • Shanghai
  • Skyscraper
  • Slosh
  • Sniff
  • Spades
  • Spinner
  • Spoiler
  • Squeeze
  • Stack
  • Straight Dominoes
  • Stratego
  • Streets and Avenues
  • Stretch
  • Super Dominoes
  • Super Train
  • Sympathy
  • Texas 42
  • Texas 88
  • That's It
  • The Big Clock
  • The Buccaneer
  • The Jubilee
  • The Passing Game
  • The Sultan
  • Three Dozen
  • Threes and Fives
  • Tiddle-a-Wink
  • Tiddly-Wink
  • Tien Gow
  • Traffic
  • Trump and Trick Games Description
  • Twenty-One
  • TWISTER: Dragon Dance
  • Wildstar

Some of the most popular Eastern domino games are:

Chinese Games:

  • Tau Ngau (Bull Fighting)
  • Kap Tai Shap (Collecting Tens)
  • Pai Gow (Make Nine)
  • Tsung Shap (Disputing Tens)
  • Tien Gow (Heaven Nine)
  • Tiu-U (Fishing)
  • Tsair Deng (Slant Nail)
  • Cosmic Turtle
  • Bonanza Pai Gow

Korean Games:

  • Dancing Dragons

Tibetan Games:

  • Bagchen