Kozel
забить козла
Dominoes in which you accumulate not points but penalties: whoever reaches a hundred and one first has lost.
Kozel is dominoes with the scoring turned around. Points here are not won but incurred, and the whole game runs from a hundred and one downward: the less you have recorded, the better you are doing.
The play itself is ordinary. The difference lies entirely in the structure above the hand: what gets recorded, against whom, and from what threshold.
What the recording floor is for
Without it a small loss would cost two or three points and a game would drag on forever. The of thirteen points glues the small change together: while a penalty is under the threshold it accumulates and lands on the player all at once.
Hence the caution towards the end. A player on ninety-five fears any hand, and a "remembered" penalty may suddenly attach itself to the next one and make them the .
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 Kozel
The deal
Two players take seven tiles each, three or four take five. The rest form the boneyard.
The lead
The holder of the lowest double leads.
The hand
Players then take turns adding tiles, matching numbers at the open ends.
With no tile to play, draw from the boneyard. Once it is empty, pass.
A hand ends when somebody plays out, or when it is .
Recording
The losers of a hand record the total pips left on their tiles.
If that total is under thirteen it is not recorded at once: it is remembered and added to the next entry.
The winner of a hand leads the next.
End of the game
Whoever's record reaches a hundred and one is declared the goat and loses the game.
Worth knowing
Who leads is agreed: most often the holder of the lowest double, though four-handed play often settles on the one-one instead. Kozel carries a great many local additions — bonuses for going out on the six-six, ranks awarded for finishing on doubles — and almost every company plays with its own.
Glossary of terms
- Blocked hand
- The position where nobody can extend the line. The hand goes to whoever holds the fewest pips.
- Recording floor
- The threshold below which a penalty is not recorded at once: it is remembered and added to the next entry.
- The goat
- Whoever first reaches a hundred and one penalty points. The game is over for them.