Dominoes Plus: The Dominoforms Handbook

Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

PART II

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

PART III:

CHAPTER 12

APPENDIX B

APPENDIX E

APPENDIX F NONSPINSET GAMES

APPENDIX G

To domino players everywhere

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Chapter 2: The A, B, C’s of dominoes: Basic Games

1 TRINKETILES

Chapter 3: Magic Square Puzzles

2 MAGIC SQUARES

3 MAGIC SQUARES

4 MAGIC SQUARES

5 MAGIC SQUARES Chapter 4: Games Using Doubles

6 COMBINATION DOMINOES

7 COMBINED OR PAIRED TILE SET SUITS DOUBLE 9

8 KING-SIZED DOMINO SET DOMINOFORMS KEY

9 COMBINOES TILE SET SUITS DOUBLE 9

10 WILDOUBLE

11 HUNDREDSETTE

12 COFFEE HOUSE GAME Chapter 5: Counting Games

13 TILECOUNT

Chapter 6: Games Played With Bags

14 ROMANTILES

Chapter 7: Different Layout Games

15 DIFFERENT LAYOUT CHAPTER MASTERMATCH / THE LAYOUT

DICEMAX / THE LAYOUT FOR A POSSIBLE GAME

Chapter 8: Dominoes and Board Games

16 CHECKOMINOES DIAGRAM A. DIAGRAM B.

17 CHECKOMINOES / DIAGRAM C.

18 CHECKOMINOES / DIAGRAM D.

19 CHECKOMINOES DIAGRAM E. DIAGRAM F.

Chapter 9: Games With Cards

20 CARDGAMES: SQUARESSI KINGS

21 CARDGAMES: SQUARESSI QUEENS/ CARDGAMES: SQUARESSI ACES

22 CARTILES AND BRICKARDS Chapter 10: Games With Dice

23 DIGADO

Chapter 11: Fabulous Multigameset Plays

24 ROUNDARY / A GAME SITUATION

25 ROUNDARY / LATER IN GAMEROUND PLAY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

Thanks to Christy Graunke for her editing of the text in the preliminary stages of finishing the book, and James Perkins for later edits and formatting.

Thanks to all the play testers: Robert Sanchez, Lois and James Perkins, Cathy Seltzer, Tad Slamp, Steve Johnson, and Kat, Crow and Naaman at Starbucks in Beaverton, Oregon and others.

For posting over 2 chapters on the International Card-Players Society web-site at www.pagat.com (the newly invented games web page) thank you John McLeod, editor. (NOTE: The posting at the website should perhaps be available to the Internet public by the time of the publishing of this work or sometime later this same year).

INTRODUCTION 

Dominoes are a wonderful pastime on rainy days, holidays, and other get together occasions. Friends and family learn sportsmanlike qualities in the games of skill and chance they play. A few simple rules are all that they really need to get started having fun. Dominoes may provide more depth of play and more kinds of games than any other game form available today. Perhaps you too are someone with fond childhood memories of dominoes. First you built structures with the playtile sets. One day, in curiosity, you may have asked someone like a neighbor or an uncle what else you might do with them. We’re going to get you started playing dominoes next Saturday. I’ll tell you all about them. We’ll have you playing for hours, is something you may remember they said and then did. But what more could you want?

Dear readers, this book is intended as a kind instruction set for games played with dominoes, and as a kind of support instrument for promoting them. This is similar to what you might find, if you are lucky, upon purchasing or acquiring a set of the playtiles. Such sets abound on the market today and may be readily bought at most any kind of mall, toy, or department store, and even at discount and donation run establishments, sometimes at less than a dollar for a full set of them. Perhaps you may increase your knowledge simply by herein studying them!

By all means, feel free to simply turn to one of the chapters and sample the games, especially if you are already familiar with dominoes. (You might want to find the Table of Contents and Index first). I promise you that because of the abundance of both traditional and new play conventions, you may be pleasantly surprised to learn more about the general rules for playtile sets. You may even enjoy it!

I am happy to inform you that I have carefully researched every aspect of this genre, including history, traditional forms of play as typically categorized, sportsmanship, gamesmanship, and tournament competition. This includes everything from the highest levels of play to the lowest and most introductory stages, such as found in beginner sets and complete gamester books. Many players don’t go much further than these introductory stages, but there are, I grant you, a great multitude of possibilities for these playtiles. I exhaustively researched again and again, comparing and buying typical domino sets, and when I felt prompted by curiosity when reading of any new games, I played them. The result of my inquest is this book with its relevant new material which took me about 10 years to compile. Which was arrived at by categorizing traditional gameforms, adding new ones that seem to be true to the classic formulas, and also expanding on common motifs of technique both in the practice of play and in the design of the game. The games themselves fall neatly into the two major subsections of this book, "PART I: GAMES WITH DOMINOES and PART II: DOMINOES AND OTHER GAMES COMBINED".

My take on this book’s material of rules for games is that it is the result of an artistic expression. Dominoes as a field of study represents a great participation-performance vehicle for its students and a historical classical teaching model for expressing various forms of interplay the likes of which may yet perhaps never grow old now. SO THEY ROCK!

Many of these games are appearing in their original form and for the first time, so there may yet be room for possible improvements. Yes, the recommended age categories for the game’s players are only recommended, and may favor the most precocious children. However, all the games were extensively (and sometimes exhaustively) play tested in the process of trial and elimination for the final cut. They appear here, after much effort, in their best and most complete form. Enjoy!

At this point, it seems appropriate to mention the popular and historical context of playtile sets in general, as they pertain to their particular categories of classic interpretation for play. Dominoes, as explained for the most part in this book, follow the form of playtile sets known as European Dominoes, which had definitely arrived on the popular scene in the last century. These dominoes descended from the precursory form of playtile sets known as Chinese Dominoes, which originated, in some form or another, around 1100 A.D. These dominoes were officially adapted to the orient by an imperial decision and became standard. While Chinese Dominoes normally have two major suits (Civil and Military), 32 pieces, and tiles of irregular values, European Dominoes have a more regular and complete order.

The word domino comes from the Latin dominus, which translates as master of the house. How dominoes may have come to Europe is not known, but curiously enough, many native cultures throughout both the New World and Old World have examples of playtile sets. Modern knowledge describes the creation of these directly with casting 2 dice in all their combinations. However, seemingly simple counter markers and measuring devices such as stones, bones, and sticks (some with scored surfaces like holes or lines) from earlier times form the origin of such sets. Which may have ultimately been used for learning and using numbers, entertainment, magic, and mystical prognostication, such as bone divination oracles. I would like to state the case that European Dominoes may have originally been invented along with the famous standing stone structures of the Stone Age. In so much as they may have been somehow related to each other, but unfortunately, only a mystical connection may now be left in history. While studying various tileforms for this book, I also came upon Mah Jong tiles, which ascribe to a more artful design for each tile. How, then, would you compare these tiles to the ones used in modern games such as Scrabble and Rumikub?

In my study of playtiles, I also developed a new domino set face of motif that is featured here for the first time and illustrated in the Combinoes game in the 4th chapter that deals with playing games with doubles. It may be considered an improvement to tile sets. It is really quite an intriguing alternative as a large set for playing dominoes. I must say that I won’t consider this book as a whole project quite finished until I have this KING-SIZED example playtile set produced and on the market (if possible). I highly favor it as the reborn medium of tile sets since every game in this book may easily be played with one or more sets of them somehow for a different and wonderful experience. With the Combinoes, the variations of play for games in this book go from a basic well-described 100+ games in the major text to hundreds besides. (This is along with other conventions of play such as scoring systems in chapter 1 and spinset, dicemax variations of games in chapter 7 and line forms of layouts for games skeletons which may easily be adapted for other game multiple variations and players need to keep that in mind). If at some time perhaps in the future that there is not an address at the back of this book for ordering the Combinoes set, there should be in a later copy of it (perhaps added as a separate advertisement by a merchant that carries it). In the meantime, you can play the combinoform games with a combined or paired double 9 domino set, and you really won’t be missing out on any of the games. It’s all brand new! In fact you may well be learning them for someday performing them with the Combino set that may someday very well become a classic standard form for domino playtiles themselves!

During the preparation of this book, I found most popular compilations of domino contain an average of 40 to 60 games. I feel that is too little information and far too narrow an understanding of the subject for a complete and well-rounded approach. A well-rounded approach is based in a thorough knowledge of the necessary mechanics of—and applications inherent in—newly created game forms. Most popular authors only review those after considerable elimination of other relevant and decent forms. I have given you all more, much more! Perhaps now more may be expected of an author’s proper rendering of the typical subject as it may so stand for the future! I didn’t stop until everything could be considered successfully in long running Information Age terms. Savor the relevance (for yourself perhaps) and play accordingly as I describe!

I propose in this book that Dominoforms (and their associated Combinoforms) are worthy of study and entertaining as a pastime, as they point to the ever-larger realm of over 100+ games and fields of study of all possible games played with playtile sets. Try them for yourself and your friends! It is dominoes reborn! Whether you are pulling out dominoes of a dusty closet, or well-worn ones from your kitchen shelf, I hope this book will breathe new life into them. Yes, they really are entertaining and you might learn something useful besides! ROCK ON!

PART I  

GAMES WITH DOMINOES

CHAPTER 1 

These are Your Dominoes/Preliminaries

Dominoes are sets of pieces of wood, plastic, or bone used primarily for entertainment and playing games. Each domino piece has either a blank or pitted registry on each half of it. The pits are often referred to as spots, dots or more commonly pips. Dominoes are called pieces, men, tiles, or stones. Dominoes are found in many cultures today and are widely used from childhood through old age. Studying and playing dominoes may be a fabulous past time! Dominoes may be for anyone and everyone!

CATEGORIZING DOMINO SETS

Let’s get down to the facts. Dominoes come in sets of varying sizes that are categorized by the highest number double in them. EXAMPLE: The typical domino set of double 6 has 28 members, including the double 6, six other doubles, and 21 combination tiles of different numbers. The doubles are 6:6, 5:5, 4:4, 3:3, 2:2,1:1, and 0:0. The combination tiles include all numbers, from zero to 6, without any pairings (in traditional domino sets until this book). The double 6 set is the most popular domino set used today, but there are other sets, including double 4s, double 5s, or even larger sets of double 9s or double 15s. As a rule, the lower numbers in the set, the less tiles it contains. All other sets of traditional dominoes use the same formula as the double 6 set. The dominoes in these sets may be either black with white pips or white with black pips, or they may be black or white with colored pips. Those are the most general types.

PLAYING BASIC DOMINO GAMES

Most domino games have a basic set of common rules and terms. Let’s consider the most general types next.

STOCK: In classic domino games, the STOCK is the set of dominoes being played with. It is the same in this book unless otherwise stated. Another name for a set of playtiles is a PILE, but quite often the STOCK is neither stored between game matches nor played with as such in a game. NOTE: See the rules for COUNT TILES for a more restricted use of the term STOCK in a game.

I have taken the liberty to refer to the STOCK as the MIXING SET or BONEYARD in each of the individual games that use one, but in classic dominoes the boneyard actually refers to the STOCK after all players have drawn their first hand from it. The stock may still be referred to as a STOCK after the players have drawn from it, but it is usually more convenient to refer to it as a boneyard.

Players draw from the STOCK when necessary during the course of a game by making buys of tiles for turns. In traditional dominoes, players leave the last two dominoes in the boneyard and don’t draw them in a game between two players. Sometimes in a game between three players, the last domino is not allowed to be drawn from the boneyard. Any game in this book with a boneyard may be so played if the players wish to use the conventions of traditional or more professional games. I recommend it.

SHUFFLE: All domino games start with a good shuffling of the tiles. To do this, place all tiles face down on a flat playing surface and thoroughly mix them up by moving them around, flat on the surface, with

the hands. Any player(s) may shuffle, but some players prefer that the player to the right of the lead player do all the shuffling for a game.

SEATING ARRANGEMENT: Normally, a seating arrangement may be determined by lot. Each player draws a domino from the shuffled stock. The player drawing the tile with the most number of pips takes his choice of which seat to sit in and usually has the first play. The holder of the next highest tile seats himself to the left, and so on. In case of a tie, drawing new dominoes from the stock solves a tiebreaker. With partnerships in a game, partners sit opposite each other.

ORDER OF PLAY: Each game has its own rules for