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Dominoes

Dominoes are little flat pieces of wood, bone, ivory, plastic, or other material, oblong in shape, and twice as long as they are wide. A properly made domino will be exactly half as thick as it is wide so that it can stand on edge without falling over, but this rule is not always adhered to. A domino may be of any size, but for practical reasons the ordinary domino is about one inch wide and two inches long.

The face of each domino forms a Double square, divided by a transverse line into two half-tiles. Each half-tile, except for those that are meant to be blank, bears a number of sunken dots, commonly called pips. The number of pips ranges from one to six in the ordinary Double-6 set. The pips are generally white if the domino is made of a black material, and they are black, or sometimes red, if the set is white. However, domino sets can be found in almost any color, and some sets have a different color for each of the numbers. None of this affects play.

In some games the numbers are important as numbers, for they must be added or subtracted. In other games the numbers are used simply for identification and could readily be replaced by letters of the alphabet or by pictures of birds or flowers or animals or by geometric designs, as indeed has been done in some children's sets of dominoes.

Domino sets are generally referred to as Double-6 or Double-9 or Double-12 sets. Actually a domino set can be "Double-anything," but these three are the most common ones. The names come from the fact that the domino with the highest number of pips in the set bears that number of pips in each of its two squares. Thus, a Double-6 set has as its piece of highest value the Double-6 . Most domino games are designed to be played with the Double-6 set, but they can usually be adapted for play with sets of a higher or lower Double. The cost of a domino set depends primarily on what the pieces are made of and how many pieces the set contains. Suitable sets can be bought for about a dollar, so there is little reason for anyone to deny himself the pleasures of the game.

As is the case with so many of the games we play today, the origin of the game of dominoes is unknown. The word domino is generally believed to be derived from the Latin dominus (the master of the house). The vocative domine became the Scottish and English dominie (schoolmaster), and the dative or ablative domino became the French, then the English, domino, which referred at first to a sort of monastic hood, then to a hooded masquerade costume with a small mask, then to the mask itself, and finally to one of the pieces in the game. It thus became dominoes, presumably from a fancied resemblance between a mask and one or more of the pieces, probably the Double-1.

So much for the word. As for the game itself, nothing, strictly speaking, is known of its origin - at least in the Western world, where it seems to have suddenly appeared in Italy in the middle of the eighteenth century. From Italy the game spread to France and from there to England, having been brought in by war prisoners, according to one report, near the end of the eighteenth century. Although particular forms of play have come and gone during the past two hundred years, the pieces themselves have remained unchanged.

Some attempts have been made to trace the entry of the game into Europe from the Far East through the Middle East, but so far no clear-cut connection has been established. The game is certainly much older in the East than in the West as far as can be determined by historical evidence. This does not necessarily mean that the game was imported into Europe from Asia. The domino concept is relatively elementary, and the game may well have been invented in Europe quite independently, especially in view of its possible connection with dice.

Dominoes in one form or another (although all are very much alike in the appearance of the pieces and, to some extent, the rules of play) are known throughout the Orient. Only the Chinese, however, have left us with much of a history, and a good part of that may be legendary. According to some accounts, the game (or at least the pieces) can be traced to Hung Ming, a soldier-hero who lived from A.D. 181 to 234. Others attribute it to the ingenuity of Keung t'ai Kung in the twelfth century B.C. The Chu sz yam (Investigations on the Traditions of All Things) states that dominoes were invented in A.D. 1120 by a statesman who presented them to the Emperor Hui Tsung, and that they were circulated abroad by imperial order during the reign of Hui's son, Kao-tsung (A.D. 1127-1163). Other interpreters of this document, however, maintain that it refers not to the invention of the game but to its standardization. The game and the pieces were in existence long before that, according to these readers, and the imperial decision of 1120 merely established which of the several forms of the game should be considered orthodox. All in all, there is no historical evidence which points conclusively to the invention of dominoes. Most likely the game, as is the case with most games, evolved gradually rather than being invented all at once.

If an ordinary pair of dice is tossed, the face-up results may be any of twenty-one different pairs, and these pairs can readily be translated into dominoes. For example, a toss of a pair of threes in the dice becomes the Double-3 in dominoes. Thus, a domino may be considered to represent one of the possible throws of a pair of dice, and most game historians consider dominoes to be an outgrowth of dice. Even the arrangement of the pips ("spots" on dice) is the same.

All Oriental dominoes - Chinese, Korean, Burmese, Siamese - consist basically of the twenty-one pieces representing the twenty-one possible throws of a pair of dice. There is no zero, or blank, in Oriental dominoes, but that is the only difference between the Eastern and Western forms of the pieces.

Another interesting parallel between dice and dominoes in the Orient is that the ones and fours are invariably done in red pips, while the other numbers are done in black (on white pieces). Strangely, three of the pips at each end of the Double-6 set are done in red, but the sixes of dice are all black. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the names of the various domino pieces are the same as the names of the various combinations that can be tossed with a pair of dice. Traditionally also, the one-spot is larger than the pips on the other dominoes and on dice.

Oriental domino sets usually contain 32 pieces, but much larger sets are known, some having as many as 141 tiles. There are no other pieces in these larger sets, however; the extra dominoes are simply duplicates of the basic twenty-one.

The Innuit Eskimos, who live at the western end of the Hudson Strait in the far north of Canada, have a game that is played with pieces of ivory cut into irregular oblong shapes and marked on the face with spots arranged in different patterns. The pieces are obviously related to dominoes, though a set may contain from 60 to 148 pieces, all different. The name of the set is a ma zu a lat, which means "standing upright side by side," but just how these pieces could stand is not at all clear. The Innuit game is little known among other Eskimo tribes, and it may have evolved from a domino game played by French explorers, for it seems unlikely that the arrangement of the pips, which so closely resembles dominoes, could have developed independently. It is said that an Eskimo will stake his last possession on the outcome of such a game, sometimes surrendering even his wife temporarily - and on occasion permanently - to a victor.

The definitive history of dominoes is yet to be written, but I doubt that we will ever know much more than we do now about who invented the game or where dominoes were first played. Fortunately, to enjoy domino games and puzzles a player does not need to know history.

Playing Dominoes

The bones that are face up in play are called the layout, chain, or line. The layout will have one or more open ends that are available to be played upon. In most games, there are two open ends - one at each end of a line of bones. In some games there may be more, or there may be varying numbers depending upon the circumstances of play. In some games, the first doublet of each hand, often called the "sniff" or "spinner", forms the intersection of a cross in the layout. This usually means that there are four open ends once the doublet has been played.

When only a single bone has been played, the two open ends are generally the two ends of the bone. If Player A played a 4-5, for example, there is a 4 on one open end and a 5 on the other. The next player must usually play a bone with an end that matches one of the open ends. Player B, therefore, must play a bone with either a 4 or a 5, and the matching ends must touch. If Player B plays the 4-6, the new bone is placed with the two 4 ends touching so that the new open ends are 5 and 6. Doubles are placed crosswise and sprouted (played upon) crosswise. As the layout grows, the two ends of the layout generally form the two playable ends.

Most domino games are block games or draw games. In draw games, players draw from the boneyard when they have no matching bone. In block games, players pass and forfeit the turn when they have no matching bone. Otherwise, there is no difference. Both generally consist of several hands of dominoes played until one of the players accumulates an agreed upon number of points and wins the series. Points are generally earned only by the first player in each hand to go out (play his or her last bone, also called to domino) and win the hand. The primary object is thus to play all one's bones before an opponent does.

There are many existing rules for determining which player is the leader (or downer), the player to make the first play of the hand. In some rules, the lead is determined by lottery. The bones are shuffled face down on the table, and each player draws one bone. The player with the highest double, or heaviest bone, or other agreed upon prize is designated the leader. By this rule, the leader then reshuffles the bones before the final deal. By other rules, the final deal determines the leader. Playing the first bone of a hand is sometimes called setting the first bone, leading the first bone, downing the first bone, or posing the first bone, and the bone so set, led, downed, or posed is called the set, the lead, the down, or the pose. After the first hand, the winner of the previous hand is usually the leader for the next. By some rules, however, the lead rotates player to player across hands.

After the final shuffle the bones are dealt; each player in turn draws the number of bones required. The stock of bones left behind is called the boneyard, and the bones therein are said to be sleeping. If the leader was determined by lottery, the leader sets by placing any bone face up on the table. If the leader was not determined by lottery, the player with the highest double leads with that double, and if no player has a double, the hand is reshuffled and redealt.

The next player, and all players in turn, must play a bone with an end that matches one of the open ends of the layout. Play continues until one of the players goes out (and calls "out!" or "domino!") and wins the hand or until all the players are blocked. If all the players are blocked the player with the lightest hand wins.

In block games, players who cannot match on their turn must forfeit the turn by knocking (passing) - accomplished by rapping twice on the table or by saying, "go" or "pass". In draw games, players who cannot match must draw bones from the boneyard until obtaining a playable bone. According to most rules, the last two bones in the boneyard may not be drawn. If the boneyard is exhausted (only two bones left), the player knocks.

The winning player scores a point for each pip on each bone still held by each opponent. If no player went out, however, and the win was determined by the lightest hand, the winning player sometimes scores a point for each pip on each bone still held by each opponent, and sometimes only the excess held by opponents. A game is generally played to 100 points, the tally being kept with paper and pencil or on a cribbage board.

Fredrick Berndt. The Domino Book: Games, Solitaire, Puzzles. T. Nelson. 1974.

NASCAR Dominoes NASCAR® Dominoes is the first Dominoes game featuring custom NASCAR dominoes packaged in a collectible tin perfect for play at home, on the road or trackside. This classic Dominoes game with a NASCAR twist includes 28 custom black dominoes with NASCAR red, yellow, blue and pink pips. The backsides of the dominoes feature a silk-screened NASCAR logo. Rules include directions for five standard Dominoes games to play.

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