Three variants cover almost every game of dominoes played at a table. Each page below gives the full rules, the scoring, and the mistakes that cause most arguments.
The default game. Draw from the boneyard whenever you cannot play.
No drawing. Pass when stuck, and count what everyone else cannot play.
Score during the round whenever the open ends total a multiple of five.
A standard double-six set has 28 tiles: every pairing of two numbers from blank to six, with no duplicates. A tile showing the same number twice, like 5|5, is a double.
The tiles nobody was dealt sit face down in a pile called the boneyard. In a four-player game dealt five tiles each, twenty tiles go out and eight stay in the boneyard.
The first double played becomes the spinner. It is laid crosswise, and once both ends of the main line have grown, the chain can also branch off its two sides - so the layout can have up to four open ends instead of two.
