Dominoes: All Fives
How to play Dominoes (All Fives)
Dominoes is a tile game for two to four players, played here with a double-six set, in which you match your tiles to the open ends of a line and try to be the first to play them all.
Score whenever the open ends add up to a multiple of five.
About Dominoes (All Fives)
All Fives deals seven tiles to each player with two players and five with three or four, and a player who cannot play draws from the boneyard until they can.
The first double played is the spinner. When tiles have been played against both of its long sides, its other two sides open as well, and the line can grow in four directions.
Most points come during play: whenever the open ends add up to a multiple of five, the player who placed the tile scores that total. The winner of a hand adds the pips left in the other players' hands, rounded to the nearest five, and the game ends after the hand in which a player reaches 150 points.
The lead can score at once: a first tile whose two halves add up to 5 or 10, such as a six-four, a three-two or the double five, scores that total as it is laid. The winner of each hand leads the next, so winning a hand also gives you the first chance to score in the next one. A blocked hand with no single winner passes the lead to the left instead.
Points scored during play are yours whether or not you win the hand, so a hand you lose can still bring you well towards 150. A double at an end counts both halves: laying the double five on an open 5 makes that end worth 10, and the double blank on an open blank makes it worth nothing, and either can bring the total to a multiple of five.
Only the other hands count when an All Fives hand ends: the winner's own leftover pips are not taken off, and the total is rounded to the nearest five, so 12 pips score 10, 13 score 15, and 1 or 2 score nothing.
The boneyard holds 14 tiles at two players, 13 at three and 8 at four, and you keep drawing from it until a tile fits, so a hand blocks only once it is empty.
The goal of Dominoes
Dominoes is played with a double-six set of 28 tiles by two to four players, each playing for themselves. You play against one, two or three computer players. Take turns adding tiles to the ends of the line, and try to be the first to play every tile in your hand.
How to set up Dominoes
The 28 tiles are shuffled and dealt. In the Draw game each player takes seven tiles, or six when four play; in the Block game and All Fives each player takes seven with two players and five with three or four. The tiles nobody is dealt are the boneyard.
The player who leads the first hand is chosen by lot and may lead any tile. In each later hand the winner of the previous hand leads.
Dominoes rules
Play passes clockwise. On your turn you place one tile at an open end of the line, with the matching number touching that end, and a double is laid crosswise. If you have a tile that can be played, you must play one.
In the Draw game and All Fives, a player who cannot play draws from the boneyard one tile at a time until they can, and passes only when the boneyard is empty. In the Block game nobody draws, so a player who cannot play passes. Drawing and passing happen by themselves, since there is never a choice to make.
A hand ends when a player plays their last tile, which is called dominoing, or when the table is blocked because nobody can play or draw. After a blocked hand with no single winner, the lead passes to the player on the left of the one who led it.
The full Dominoes guide, with strategy tips and common questions