Gamblers palace provides a comprehensive player vs. player or play against a computer opponent to test your domino skills.

Your computer opponents will have varying levels of artificial intelligence. Computer opponents are a good way to learn to play dominoes and to practice your game at your own pace.

The ranks of domino pieces

The value of each end of a bone is determined by the number of spots on the end, with zero (blank) being the lowest and six being the highest. The rank of a bone is determined by the combined number of pips on the two ends. This rank is sometimes referred to as the bone's weight so that a higher ranking bone is called a heavier bone while a lower ranking bone is called lighter.

The Draw

Number of dominoes drawn: Players can choose to play with a draw of 7 or 9 dominoes from the stock. The dominoes not drawn are to the right side of the table to make up the Boneyard. The player who draws the largest Double makes the first play of the game. The first double played is always the spinner.

How to draw your Dominoes

You can pull the dominoes from the Boneyard by clicking on the domino of your choice and dragging it to your side of the table. If you choose to have the computer pull your dominoes for you, you can click "auto draw".

How to play Dominoes

After the first domino is set, the players must join a domino from their hand with an open end in the line of play.

The ends of the two dominoes that are joined must have the same number of pips. If a player is unable to make a play from his/her hand, he/she must draw dominoes from the boneyard until a playable domino is drawn. If a player is unable to make a play from his/her hand, and there are no dominoes left in the boneyard, the player must skip his/her turn until he/she is able to make a play.

How to place a domino into play

All of the dominoes that are legal plays are highlighted blue. Place a domino into play by clicking and dragging it to a legal position on the table, legal positions are highlighted on the table.

Scoring

A player is awarded points every time he/she makes a play that results in the open ends of the dominoes in the line of play adding to a multiple of 5. (5 points for 5 pips; 10 points for 10 pips; 15 points for 15 pips; and so on.)

The player who dominoes is also awarded points at the end of each hand, by adding up the points from the remaining dominoes in his/her opponent's hand. The points from the remaining dominoes are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5. (0, 1, or 2 pips is worth zero points; 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 is worth 5 points; 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 is worth 10 points; and so on.)

Scoring if a hand is blocked: The player with the lowest number of pips scores the total points in his/her opponent's hand.

The first player to reach the designated final score wins the game. If a player reaches the final score during play, the game ends at that point.

Score: Your total score will be displayed below your character on the left side of the screen. At the end of each hand, the amount of points scored from the dominoes remaining in either player's hand is shown on the right side of the screen.

The Clock

The player that creates the table chooses the amount of time per hand. For example: If 4 minutes was chosen, then each player has a total of 4 minutes to play his/her hand. Your clock will only run when it is your turn to play, and it stops when you complete your turn. If you run out of time, then you lose the game and your wager, if playing in a real money game.

The History of dominoes

Dominoes are descendants of dice. The two ends on each of the original Chinese dominoes represented one of the 21 combinations that can occur with the throw of two dice. Modern western dominoes, however, have blank ends on them as well and so the number of dominoes is generally 28. Dominoes were apparently unknown in Europe until the 18th century and may have been invented in their modern form in Italy. The dark spots on light faces apparently reminded people of masquerade masks with eyeholes (called dominoes) and thus gave the playing pieces their name. Chinese dominoes do not have blanks, but some whole tiles are duplicated.