3 Ways To Play Dominoes

Needed

Double-six set of dominoes; two to four players; pen and paper for scorekeeping 

Setup

Each player will draw seven domino tiles in a two or three player game.  

Each player will draw five domino tiles in a four player game.  

The remaining dominoes stay face down and are known as the boneyard.

Objective of the Game

The object of the muggins game is to score points by being the first player to play all your domino tiles in a round, or by making the exposed ends of the chain add up to a multiple of five after playing a domino tile.  

Domino tiles are played into the middle by matching an open end number with one from your hand. 

Game Play

The player with the highest double tile gets the first turn.  Play moves in a clockwise direction to the left.  

On a turn, players will play one domino tile into the middle, if possible.  A domino tile can be played into the middle by matching two domino ends that have the same number of dots.  

If a match cannot be played, the player will draw domino tiles from the boneyard until a match is found.  The match drawn is played, and play moves to the next player.

Players continue to take turns until one player plays his/her last domino tile into the middle.

When a domino is played into the middle that results in the open ends adding up to a multiple of five, the player announces it and immediately scores the amount.

Scoring

At the end of a round, the winner is awarded points based on the value of the dominoes left in the other players’ hands rounded to the nearest multiple of five.  

The first player to an agreed-upon number of points, such as 150 points, wins the game.

Rules

The player with the highest double tile starts the first round.  After the first round, the starting player rotates left each round.

The first double domino tile played is known as the spinner. The spinner can have up to four dominoes played on it.  There is only one spinner tile per round.

A player must continue to draw tiles from the boneyard until he/she is able to play a domino.  If the boneyard is empty, and a player cannot play, that player’s turn is skipped.  

If all players cannot play, and the boneyard is empty, the player with the lowest total domino value wins the round.  The winning player subtracts the value of his/her domino tiles from each opponent’s domino tile values, and scores the resulting amount rounded to the nearest multiple of five.