Fives Dominoes
Points are scored for the move, not for going out: leave the open ends adding to a multiple of five and you take the total.
Everywhere in this family points are scored as play goes, not at the end. Play a tile, add the numbers on every ; if the total divides by five, take it.
That stops going out from being the point. A player who goes out first may have scored less over the hand than one who played slowly and accurately.
One rule separates four games
The names collide here: the same form is called Muggins in one place, Five Up in another, All Fives in a third. What separates them is not the name but the — a double the layout may grow from on four sides.
Muggins has no spinners: the layout stays a line and there are always two ends. All Fives makes a spinner of the first double only. Five Up makes spinners of every double, and by mid-hand there may be four ends or more — the arithmetic becomes real work.
Fives and Threes stands slightly apart: it has no spinners either, but multiples of three score as well, and there is no boneyard at all.
Why the counting is done aloud
Scoring happens right after the move, so the game is played with a cribbage board or an abacus: points are pegged as they are made rather than written down at the end of a hand.
That is also what keeps it fast. While your opponent is thinking, you already know which number the end has to show for them to score nothing.
Set of dominoes
Under these rules: Twenty-eight tiles.
Twenty-eight rectangular tiles carrying every combination of halves from double blank to double six.
A set is named after its highest double: the ordinary one is a double-six. Every combination occurs exactly once, and that is what makes the game countable — knowing what has been played, you can work out what is left in other people's hands. Larger sets exist — double-nine with fifty-five tiles and double-twelve with ninety-one — and they are there for a bigger company.
The rules of Muggins
The deal
Two players take seven tiles each, three or four take five. The rest form the boneyard.
Play
A tile is added to an open end, matching numbers. Doubles are laid crosswise, but the layout stays a line: there are no spinners here.
With no play, draw from the boneyard until a move appears. If the boneyard is empty and there is no move, pass.
Scoring
After a move, add the numbers on the two open ends. If the total is a multiple of five, the player scores that total.
A double at an end counts the sum of both halves: the five-five is ten, the six-six twelve.
End of a hand
A hand ends when somebody goes out, or when nobody can move.
The pips left in hand are totalled, rounded to the nearest multiple of five, and subtracted from that player's score.
Winning
Play runs to an agreed total: two hundred for three or four players, two hundred and fifty for two.
Worth knowing
Hand size and the finishing threshold are given variously: two hundred points for three or four players, two hundred and fifty for two. Some companies play Muggins with no drawing at all, which makes it a block game. Whether chipping out scores a point of its own also varies.
Glossary of terms
- Chipping out
- Playing your last tile. In some forms it scores a point; in others it merely ends the hand.
- Open ends
- The numbers on every free end of the layout. Their total is counted after each move.
- Spinner
- A double the layout may grow from on all four sides rather than only along the line.