How to play Block Dominoes using Foster's historic version

To play Block Dominoes with two people, choose one account of the game before mixing the tiles. This tutorial follows the two-player Block Game in R. F. Foster's Complete Hoyle, revised to October 1914. It is a historic version with useful explanations of matching, long suits and deciding whether to close the game.

Use Foster's rules together throughout the session. His chapter also describes Draw, Matadore, Sebastopol and other games with different objectives or drawing arrangements. A remembered move from one of those games can change what happens at your table. The examples below identify their own invented hands; they are not observations of a retail set in use.

Identify the double-six equipment and the two players

Foster describes a standard double-six set as twenty-eight different pieces bearing combinations from blank through six. Each tile has two halves. A six-two belongs to both the six suit and the two suit; a double-five has five on both halves. A blank is an unmarked value, not an absent tile.

That equipment account gives you something specific to confirm when choosing a package. The actual AB VINIL Masterpieces Oregon State University Double Six offer clearly names Double Six. It is listed as Multicolor in All Toys & Games, SKU 17838364045. Its brief quality and satisfaction claims do not establish a tested result, and its description does not enumerate a received inventory.

The Harvey Makin UTWD1326_1 Black set names dominoes, tic tac toe and dice. It is listed for adults as unisex, SKU 18327003093. The short account gives no domino range or tile count. Confirm those contents for the actual supplied package before assuming it provides the double-six equipment described here.

Foster's book also discusses historical materials and a central pin used for shuffling. Those details do not describe either selected offer. Choose a complete double-six set whose markings both people can read. Ask about the actual tiles if their visibility or contents remain uncertain.

Choose the first set and shuffle again

Foster gives several ways to determine who makes the first set, meaning the opening play. Use his second method for this tutorial: one player selects two face-down tiles and pushes them toward the other person, who chooses one. Turn both up. The person with the lighter tile, meaning fewer pips, has the first set.

For an explicitly invented unequal comparison, four-one has five pips and six-three has nine. The person receiving four-one would have the opening play under that method. This example supplies unequal totals. Foster's short account of this method does not state a rule for equal totals; agree on any house handling of that case and label it as your addition.

Both players then shuffle again, and each takes seven tiles. The remaining face-down tiles form the stock, also called the bone-yard. Leave that stock outside the players' hands for this Block version. Do not carry the compulsory drawing sequence from the separately described Draw Game into a turn when someone cannot play.

Keep your own faces available to you while concealing them from the other player. Foster describes sorting the pieces into suits and standing them on their edges or holding them. Arrange the hand so you can identify its two numbers without repeatedly confusing one tile with another. The unopened stock remains a separate group.

Look for a long suit before opening

The player with the first set may open with any tile. Foster recommends considering a long suit, especially when three or more tiles share its number. His explanation is that returning the line to that suit can preserve more of your own possible replies. It is a way to assess a hand, without promising a particular outcome.

Consider this original seven-tile hand for Alex: double-five, five-two, five-zero, five-three, two-zero, four-one and six-one. Four tiles contain five. Two contain blank, two contain two and two contain one. Five-two appears in the count for both suits. Counting a suit does not give the tile an extra physical copy.

Opening five-zero would expose five and blank. That keeps one end in Alex's longest suit and the other in a suit represented by two of the starting tiles. Another legal opening might expose different numbers. Alex can compare those choices using the actual hand, while remembering that the opponent's unseen tiles can change the line immediately.

Keep the recommendation separate from a compulsory opening. Foster's Block account allows the first player to select a tile; it does not require the highest double to open under the first-set method chosen above. Agree on the selection method before treating a remembered highest-double convention as a rule at this table.

Match an exposed end and read what changes

Foster's matching account requires a played tile to match one of the line's exposed ends. Put the matching halves together, with the played faces upward. A six adjoins a six, a four adjoins a four, and a blank adjoins a blank. The number left facing outward becomes that end's available value.

Doubles lie across the line, at right angles. That orientation does not turn this Block line into the four-direction opening used in the separately described Sebastopol game. Keep following the two exposed ends of the Block line. A number visible inside an earlier connection is not another open place to continue.

For a compact invented turn example, suppose the exposed ends are two and five. Alex plays five-one against five, leaving ends two and one. Bea plays double-two across the two end. The exposed values remain two and one. Read the ends after each placement instead of treating the double's sideways position as a new branch.

If Alex's only remaining tile is four-three, neither half matches those ends. Alex cannot extend that position. A five can still be visible inside the line, but its earlier connection has already been covered. The place where the tile would join, not every dot visible on the table, determines the matching question.

Passing in Block Dominoes keeps the turn moving

For passing in Block Dominoes, Foster uses the call “Go” when a person cannot play. In the position just described, Alex says go. Bea can continue with a legal matching tile; Alex does not take an undealt piece to make a new option. Keep the stock untouched while following this Block account.

Continue the same invented position. Bea plays one-zero at the one end, leaving two and blank. Alex still cannot use four-three and says go again. Bea then plays zero-three, leaving two and three. Alex can now play four-three at three and empty the hand. Two earlier passes did not remove Alex permanently from the game.

Foster calls getting rid of the last piece making domino. Once a player has done that, the other person does not get a further reply merely because a new exposed number would suit their hand. Stop the round and count what remains. An empty-hand result and a completely blocked result reach scoring by different routes.

Consider the ends before choosing to block

Foster discusses a useful decision: whether to leave an opponent's known unavailable numbers exposed or introduce a new one. A go tells you that the player could not match the ends present at that turn. If you change an end afterward, the earlier go does not prove that the new value is unavailable too.

Use a separate fictional position with blank and four exposed. Alex holds four-zero, four-five and double-five. Bea has just said go. Alex therefore knows Bea could not play to blank or four at that turn. Alex can keep those values present with four-zero, or introduce five by playing four-five at the four end.

Putting four-zero against the exposed four leaves blanks at both ends. Alex's remaining four-five and double-five contain no blank. Bea's go already established no blank in Bea's current hand, so that choice blocks both people in the stated situation. Putting the same four-zero against the blank end instead leaves fours at both ends, and Alex still holds four-five.

The two placements leave different exposed numbers. Read which half is joining the line and which half will face outward before deciding. Introducing five also changes the information Alex can use about Bea. Bea's earlier go at blank and four does not establish whether Bea holds a five.

Foster weighs blocking against the remaining hands. The decision is not settled by the number of tiles alone. In a real concealed-hand game, Alex may lack a complete count of Bea's pips. Keep the unknown hand in mind when weighing a block. The complete hands in the scoring example below let you check a result; they are not information a player automatically has during ordinary play.

Scoring a blocked domino hand uses the pip difference

For scoring a blocked domino hand, keep the blocked placement just described and disclose the invented remaining hands for explanation. Alex retains four-five and double-five: nine plus ten gives nineteen pips. Suppose Bea retains double-six, six-three and five-two: twelve plus nine plus seven gives twenty-eight.

Foster's blocked-game account makes the larger total lose the excess over the smaller. Twenty-eight minus nineteen is nine, so Alex wins nine points in this fictional result. Two remaining pieces versus three was not the scoring calculation. Their numbered halves supplied nineteen and twenty-eight.

An empty-hand result is simpler to count. If someone makes domino while the opponent retains only double-six, the opponent has twelve pips left and the player who went out counts those twelve. Foster explicitly ends the play on domino, even when the other person could play to the newly exposed end.

If both blocked totals are equal, their difference is zero. For a compact invented case with six at both ends, one hand might contain five-zero and the other three-two. Each totals five and neither contains six. Five minus five is zero. That arithmetic supplies no positive difference to add to either running total.

Agree on the game target and add the result

Foster describes Block being played to fifty or one hundred points. Choose one target together before starting; use one hundred for this tutorial. If Alex had forty-one before the nine-point blocked result, forty-one plus nine gives fifty. Fifty has not reached the agreed hundred-point target.

Keep the award separate from the hand totals used to obtain it. Nineteen described Alex's remaining pips, twenty-eight described Bea's, and nine was their difference. Add nine to Alex's existing game score. There is no reason to add either complete hand total again after that subtraction.

This account does not invent a next-round lead rule where the selected Block passage leaves one unstated. Agree on the continuation at your table using the complete chosen reference. Keep any house choice identified as such, so another player can distinguish it from Foster's printed explanation.

Use related games for their own rules

The actual winter draw-domino guide for two follows a different account that includes drawing and its last-two-stock-tiles limit. Its C&H and Bey-Berk package descriptions stay with those products. Choose that guide when you want its Draw version, and keep its drawing sequence outside the Foster Block session here.

The actual summer cornhole gathering guide also makes a chosen scoring convention explicit before a shared game. Agree on the version before applying a remembered rule. Its cornhole equipment and scoring do not supply a domino rule.

When you play Block Dominoes using this historic account, keep the chosen first-set method and target clear. Follow the exposed ends, recognize a go and finish the round before scoring. Refer to the complete Foster account when a position raises a question these examples do not answer.

Conceptual play Block Dominoes cover with complete generic inactive tiles, blank score pad and pencil; no exact retail package or real game result is demonstrated.