Partnership Dominoes
Four players in two pairs, every tile dealt out, no boneyard: the counting is done from memory, not from guesswork.
Double-Nine Set
Under these rules: Fifty-five tiles; forty go into the hand, the remaining fifteen lie face down and unused.
Fifty-five tiles covering every pairing of halves up to nine-nine.
The larger set for a larger company: more numbers on the halves means more pairings, and enough to deal to six or eight. It holds ten doubles rather than seven, which changes any game where a double means something.
The rules of Cuban dominoes
What differs
A double-nine set of fifty-five tiles is used. Each player takes ten, and the remaining fifteen lie face down and take no part in the hand.
That makes the full count of ordinary partnership dominoes impossible here: some tiles are always unknown.
The deal
The tiles are mixed across the table. Each player draws ten and sets them on a rack.
A player dealt five or more doubles may show them before play and demand a redeal.
Play
The line may turn corners to fit the table. Otherwise play and knocking are as usual.
Scoring
The winning pair records the pips on the opponents' tiles. The game runs to a hundred points.
A pair reaching a hundred while the opponents have scored nothing at all has a name of its own, though it makes no difference to the score.
Worth knowing
How the opener within a pair is chosen varies, as does whether a blocked hand counts the pips of all four. Games to three hundred rather than a hundred are also found.
Glossary of terms
- Blocked hand
- The position where all four have knocked in succession. The hand goes to the pair with fewer pips.
- Capicú
- Going out with a tile that could have been played on either end.
- Knock
- Passing a turn: the player knocks a tile on the table to show they hold nothing that fits.