Hobbies And Interests
Domino Jargon
The individual domino pieces are often referred to as bones, tiles or stones in game play. A blank tile is one without any spots, which are commonly called "pips." A double is a tile that has the same number of spots at each end of the tile. The bone pile or bone yard is the common name for the pile of dominoes, laid face down on the table, from which each player must draw under a certain set of circumstances. A heavy tile is one with more pips; a light tile is one with fewer pips. The word "shuffle" refers to mixing up the bones in the bone yard, and "draw" means a player must take a domino.
Five-Up or Muggins
The game Five-Up, a scoring domino game, begins with each player drawing a domino. The player with the heaviest domino goes first. All players then draw 5 tiles from the bone yard. The first player places one domino on the table; the second player must connect to that domino with a matching number of pips. If she cannot, she must draw from the bone yard. If that tile cannot be played, she passes. Play continues in both directions from the originally laid domino. When the first double is played, four separate lines form off of that one tile. For all subsequent doubles, play can only continue in the line.
The object of Five-Up is to score a multiple of 5 with the dominoes at the ends of the lines. If the first tile played is 4-3, and someone connects a 3-6 to that tile, the ends of the line (4 and 6) add up to 10, so the player who played the 3-6 tile scores 10 points. If the next player plays a 2-4, that player scores no points since the ends do not add up to a multiple of 5. However, if the next player follows it with a 2-2, all the ends (2, 2 and 6) add up to 10, so that player scores 10 points. Game play continues until one player reaches 150 points.
Mexican Train
Mexican Train is played similarly. However, every player draws 15 tiles from the bone yard. The player with the heaviest double goes first, placing the double in the middle of the board. In the first round, all players must play on that double with as many of their own tiles as possible. After the first round, players may only play one tile at a time. Each player may only play on her own "train" of tiles proceeding from the original double; however, if another player is unable to play on his train, he places a playing piece on top of his train and other players may add to his train. If a double is played, all normal play stops until someone can place a tile with the number of the double on the double. If anyone cannot play on his turn, he must draw from the bone yard, and if he still cannot play, he forfeits that turn. Play continues until one player exhausts all her dominoes.