Domino Terminology Part 1

Domino - The tile used in the game of dominoes. To domino means to play all the tiles in your hand.
Hand - Are the dominoes of each player.
Layout - The dominoes in play on the table.
End - Each dotted side of the domino face with a number (or blank).
Open End - The end of a domino that is not connected to other tiles. Tiles are played on open ends of dominoes.
Shuffle -To mix the bones while they are turned face down on the table.
Draw - To pick the bones for your hand out of a central pile or the boneyard, or to choose a domino from the boneyard to add to your hand.
Blocked game - When no players can make a move.

Bone or Tile - A common term for a domino.
Bone pile or Boneyard - Spare bones left after the drawing of hands that may be used as a draw pile in some games.
Back of the domino - The side with no dots.
Dot, Pip or Spot - the markings on a domino, which reflect the value of the domino.
Bar - the line that separates the two ends of a domino.

Heavier - A bone with more spots on it is said to be heavier than another bone with fewer spots.
Lighter - A bone with fewer spots on it is said to be lighter than another bone with more spots.

A suit of dominoes - The tiles which have the same numbers on the ends. Each suit has seven tiles.
Blank - An end of a tile which contains no pips or spots. It can also be called the zero, white or pale domino.
Ace - The end of a domino with only one dot.
Deuce - A domino with two dots on one end.
Trey - A domino with an end containing three dots
Doublet or Double -A tile which contains the same number of pips at both ends.

Double Sixes - The highest ranking tile in a 28 tile set. Also, the name of such a set.
Double Nines - The highest ranking tile in a 55 tile set. Also, the name of such a set.
Double Twelves - The highest ranking tile in a 91 tile set. Also, the name of such a set.

Spinner - The first double domino that is played during the game and also A double which is turned sideways in the line of play and has the addition property that other tiles can be played from its two exposed ends and the open side. The lines of tiles that radiate from the spinner are called its arms.

An Introduction to Domino Architecture

Domino architecture is to domino is what calligraphy is to martial arts, it's meditative, it's challenging and once you set a stone in your building you can never take it back.

(A Tall Bridge Pagoda)

There are only 2 rules to Domino architecture:

1 -You can use only domino tiles to build your building.
2 - You can use only one set of dominoes (limited to 28 tiles when using the double 6 set, 55 tiles with a double 9 set and so on).

(9 Floors Pagoda)

Now that we covered that, I have to mentioned the other rules for domino architecture, which actually also apply to many other fields of work and day to day situations:

1 -Know your building stones. domino tiles are not perfect, in fact they are quite twisted and react quite differently from another under a pressure of the domino tiles above them. Ironically in some sets the "heaviest" tile (the one with most points) is also the lightest (the one that weights the fewer milligrams), this comes into real effect when expending your building sideways.

(I usually name building of this type as temple or tombs)

2 -For every action there is a reaction. as you add more tiles to your building you'll see it twitch and shake and in most cases fall. Again if you know your building stone you can plan ahead and avoid it.

(A Snake Pagoda)

3 -Bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. Try not to move the table that much as you build, or infect try and not to move it at all. Also using a hard base to build on ( like a domino box, or its cover) may give you the chance to build higher.

(Bridge Pagoda)

4 -Pay attention! like mention above, always check how a stone reacts when you place it or place another stone above it. Like in health: early detection = prevention, finding an unstable joint in the beginning of the building process and fixing/adjusting will save you the trouble of redoing it all over again. also the higher you build - the more attention you need to give to the building and the more aware you need to be of your motions and movements.

(Straight Tower - With a 28 tiles this 14 floors (and a 1/6Th) tall building is not the highest structure possible, with a small adjustment to the top and a lot of paying attention you can reach a height 15 or16 floors)

(A type of Chain Tower. short and sturdy, these type of towers rarely collapse.)

(A 4 Stones Bridge)

(A 5 Stones Bridge)

(an Expending Straight Tower)

PS.
The 3 'kinder' dog performing magnificent acrobatic acts at the top of the tower are called 'The Piggy Wiggies'. I usually used them as the final test for my structures stability.

Luxembourg Draw Dominoes Rules

Before naming this game /set of rules after my self I have been searching high and low, looking for anything like it (I will post all the web links that I found soon) and after a week long of searching I concluded no other domino game exist that uses my set of rules.

I did manage to find a few other games similarly interesting names: Bergen, Cyprus and Sevastopol ( though I am sure there are more out there).


Anyway, this is how we play domino is the Luxembourg house/style/family:

Luxembourg Draw Domino
For 2-6 players.

Setup
After shuffling the dominoes, each player draws tiles to make up their hand. The number of tiles drawn depends on the number of players:
2 players draw 7 tiles each
3 players draw 6 tiles each
4 players draw 5 tiles each
5 players draw 4 tiles each
6 players draw 3 tiles each.

The remainders of the tiles make up the bone yard, or stock, and are held in or reserve to be drawn upon at need.

After drawing their hands each player then draws 1 more tile from the bone yard and turns it over so that the pips on its face could be seen by all other players. The tile with the highest number of pips is placed on the table - this is the winning tile; all other tiles are then returned to the bone yard and the bone yard is shuffled again.

Game play
The player who drew the tile with the highest number of pips starts the game and tries to match the pips on one end of a tile from his hand with the pips on either ends of the winning tile. If that player is unable to match a tile from his hand with the winning tile he then must draw only 1 domino tile from the bone yard and pass his turn to the player on his left.

Play then proceeds clockwise as each player tries to match the pips on one end of a tile from his hand with the pips on an open end of any tile in the layout.

Drawing Tiles
A player that is unable to match a tile from his hand with a tile in the layout must draw 1 domino tile only from the bone yard and then pass his turn to the player on his left. If there are no dominoes left, then that player must pass.

Ending a Round
A game ends either when a player plays all his tiles, or when a game is "blocked" meaning; when all players still have tiles in their hand, but none of them is able to add another tile to the layout.

Scoring
When a Round ends, each player counts the number of points (1 pip = 1 point) in his hand, the rounds last till one of the player has reached 100 points. The winner of the game is the one who has the lowest number of point at game’s end.

PS.
Traditionally (again for the past 2 years or so) we play 3 rounds per game and The winner of the game is the one who has the lowest number of point at game’s end. we only do a tournament ( up to 100 points) when there is a crowd (3+ persons) playing.