How to Play Dominoes
Play two-player Double-Six Draw Dominoes here: seven tiles each, with two left untouched in the boneyard. Black may open with any tile. After that, play to an open end; if nothing fits, draw until something does or only the two reserved tiles remain. Empty your hand first, or hold fewer pips in a block, and you win. Pick an AI level and a seat, then start.
What Dominoes Is
A domino is a rectangle split in two, each half showing zero to six pips. This table uses the double-six set: twenty-eight unique tiles, from 0-0 to 6-6. It is not mahjong, and it is not the tumbling-block toy. The job is to grow one shared chain.
Matching-pip tiles are usually traced to China. By the Song period, bone and ivory tablets already stood for a throw of two dice. Chinese sets later became games such as tianjiu: typically thirty-two tiles, with duplicates and some red faces. In the eighteenth century the tiles reached Italy, took the name domino, and spread through French and British parlors into the Western double-six of twenty-eight unique pairings. Local games branched from there: Block, Draw, All Fives, Mexican Train. The sitting above is the two-player Draw game that became the English-speaking default.
Each side starts with seven tiles; two stay in the boneyard. Black may open with any tile. After that you match an open end, or draw until you can. A legal play must be used. Empty your hand to win; if both sides pass, the lower pip total wins.
Match an Open End
The table is one chain, not a lattice of crossing points. Each end shows a pip value, and every play has to match one of them. The opening has no chain yet, so Black may start with any tile; both faces of that tile then become the two ends.
Draw Until You Can Play
When no tile in hand matches, draw from the boneyard until one does. Drawing does not pass the turn. Two tiles always stay in the boneyard: if you still cannot play after that, the turn passes and the other side moves.
Hints Follow the Current AI Level
Pick a strength that matches the game, then sit Black or answer as White. Hints use the same search as that level. Undo takes back the last play together with the reply. After the game you can replay every draw, pass, and tile. All computation stays in the browser.
28tiles in a double-six set
7tiles dealt to each player
2tiles left in the boneyard
Pipsdecide a blocked game