The Probert Encyclopaedia of Recreation

DOMINOES

Dominoes is a game played by two individuals or two pairs of players, with small flat rectangular pieces of ivory, later plastic, about twice as long as they are broad. They are marked with spots varying in number. When one player leads by laying down a domino, the next must follow by placing alongside of it another which has the same number of spots on one of its sides. Thus if the first player lays down 6-4, the second may reply with 4-3, or 6-5, etc; in the former case he must turn in the 4, placing it beside the 4 of the first domino, so that the numbers remaining out will be 6-3; in the latter case he must turn in the 6 to the 6 in like manner, leaving 4-5, to which his opponent must now respond. The player who cannot follow suit loses his turn, and the original object of the game was to get rid of all the dominoes in hand, or to hold fewer spots than your opponent when the game is exhausted by neither being able to play.

During the 20th century variations developed, among the most popular being fives and threes in which the players seek to make multiples of five and three from the end dominoes, thus 5-4 produces five plus four, or nine which is three multiples of three and scores three points. Double-six and three gives fifteen which is five multiples of three and three multiples of five and thus scores eight points. In the game of fives and threes the object is to score exactly 61 points, the score being recorded on a cribbage board, going once or twice round and exactly out. Scores which would exceed the target score are not counted, making the game very skilful indeed.
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