How to Play Cardinals Mexican Train Dominoes

Place the dominoes face down on the table and shuffle them. If you have two to four players, draw 15 dominoes each. If you have five or six players, draw 12 dominoes each. For seven or eight players, draw 11 dominoes each. Leave the remaining dominoes face down on the table as the boneyard.

Ask the player with the double twelve domino to place it face up in the center of the domino hub, or in the center of the table if the game didn’t include a hub. If no one has the double twelve, all the players draw an additional domino from the boneyard until someone can play it.

Have all the players build trains, if they can, by matching their dominoes end to end in a line, starting at the center domino and working toward themselves.

Have the player who started the game play one domino on their own train, or start a Mexican train from the center domino that anyone may play on. Anytime players cannot play on their own trains or the Mexican train, they must put their train token on the last domino of their train, which lets other players use it as well. The player then draws a domino from the boneyard. When players play double dominoes, they must place them crosswise in the line of dominoes, then play a second domino as well.

Continue taking turns clockwise. When players have only one domino left, they must say so. The round ends when one player “gets off the train” by using up all of his or her dominoes, or until the boneyard is empty and no one can play.

Score the round by adding up the total number of dots on the leftover dominoes in each player’s hand. Record the totals for the round on the score sheet.

Play twelve more rounds the same way. On the second round, start with the double eleven instead of the double twelve, then the double ten and so on until the double blank.

Add up the scores from all the rounds. The player with the lowest overall total wins.