777JILI Domino Game Rules: Deal, Play and Score by Pips

A domino game begins with a set of tiles and ends when one player plays out or nobody can move. This 777JILI page follows the rules pagat.com publishes for the common double-six set, from the deal to the points, and it sits with the card table and poker games pages because the same questions come up: how the pieces are mixed, who leads and what a round is worth. If you look for a domino title in the lobby you use, read the rule screen of that title first, because local custom changes the details.

The double-six set and its larger cousins

pagat.com describes the Western set as tiles whose two halves carry zero to six pips, one tile for each pairing of the numbers. That double-six set holds 28 tiles, and its Block and Draw games are the ones this page follows. Larger sets add higher numbers, and pagat.com lists them like this:

Dominoes rules for the deal

The dominoes rules for Block and Draw change the hand size with the number of players, and every tile not dealt becomes the boneyard. The boneyard columns below are plain subtraction from 28.

Before the deal, pagat.com says the tiles are mixed face down until the players agree they are in random order. It adds that mixing should go on until a tile is unlikely to stay beside its old neighbour, and that many players stop too soon. The how to shuffle cards by hand page treats a deck of cards the same way.

How a domino game is played in Block and Draw

pagat.com sets the two games out in nearly the same steps:

1. The players draw for the lead.
2. Each player in turn places a tile on either end of one line. A double is laid across the line and is not a spinner.
3. A player who cannot play passes in Block. In Draw, that player takes tiles from the boneyard until one can be played or only two tiles are left, and then passes.
4. The round stops when one player plays the last tile, or when nobody can play.
5. The tiles are mixed again, and the lead passes to the left of the previous leader.

The difference is the boneyard: Block never touches it, Draw lets you draw from it. pagat.com also warns that many domino games are more a matter of folklore and local convention than of written standards, so agree the house rules before the first tile.

How points are counted in a domino game

At the end of a round, pagat.com’s Block and Draw rules give each player the total of the pips left in their hand. The player with the lowest total wins the round and is credited with the losers’ totals added together, minus the winner’s own total. If two players tie for the lowest total, nobody scores.

Worked example from that rule: 3 players finish with 0, 9 and 12 pips. The player who played out scores 9 + 12 - 0 = 21. In a blocked round where the lowest hand still holds 4 pips, the same player scores 9 + 12 - 4 = 17.

pagat.com says the game runs to 100 points for two players or partnerships and to 61 for three or four players, a convention that lets a cribbage board keep the score. Its Puerto Rico variant scores differently: the winner takes all the pips left in the other hands, and a blocked game goes to the fewest pips. Compare this with the tie-and-payout logic of the war card game if you want a second case of comparing two numbers to settle a round.