A domino is a flat thumb-sized rectangular block, bearing from one to six pips (or dots), that is used in many games to mark positions on a scoring board. A complete set consists of 28 pieces. A player scores by placing his or her dominoes in a line or angular pattern that is scored according to the number of pips on the open end of each domino played. The pips are normally either white or black, but a set may also contain tiles in other colors as well.
There are a large variety of domino games, although nearly all of them fall into four categories: bidding games, blocking games, scoring games, and round games. The most common games use the double-six set, which has a pip count of twenty-six.
When a game is blocked, it becomes impossible for any player to make another play. A player who is unable to make a play should declare this fact before the next player draws his or her hand. The overdrawn tiles should then be returned to the boneyard or stock, and the deck should be reshuffled before the next player draws his or her hand.
Dominoes can be stacked in a variety of shapes and arrangements, including straight lines, curved lines, grids that form pictures when they fall, and 3D structures such as towers and pyramids. A popular type of domino art is the creation of tracks, which can be simple arrows or elaborate patterns that guide the flow of the dominoes as they fall.
A game of domino can be played by two or more players, with the number of players determining the amount of strategy involved. The simplest games are for just two players, and involve drawing and matching pairs of dominoes. In most of these games, a match is made when a player places a domino so that its open end adjoins the open end of another domino in its line of play. The player with the highest pair of dominoes makes the first play.
If a match is not made, the turn passes to the player to the right of the overdrawn player. In some domino games, the player must draw an additional tile for his or her hand if the value of the previous tile is higher than the new one.
A more sophisticated form of domino, called a spinner, is a domino that can be played on all four sides. Depending on the rules of a given game, it is often necessary to play a spinner in order to gain an advantage. This is particularly true of some blocking and scoring games, where a player must be aware of the total value of his or her opponents’ remaining tiles in order to score correctly. This is why some games only count the pips on one side of a double, rather than on both. The resulting total is the player’s score at the end of a hand or game.