Blind Hughie Domino Game Rules and Directions

Blind Hughie is my girls favorite domino game. It is a game of chance and has no math involved. It has simple rules and goes relatively quickly. You can play this game with little kids.

Come see our 10 Great Domino Games for Children Blog for more Domino Game Ideas.

Basics:

• A block-type Domino Game
• Two to Four Players using a double-six domino set but large sets can be used to accommodate more players.

PLAY:

1. The dominoes are placed face down and “shuffled”
2. Next, each player draws tiles (extra tiles are set aside) and lay them in a line in front of them.  Players can not look at the tiles and before play begins they have to decide which side of their line they will draw from throughout the whole game.
   • 2 players – 14 tiles each
   • 3 players – 9 tiles each
   • 4 players – 7 tiles each

• Pick a tile from the extras  or “widows” pile to start play.

• Players take turns flipping their first tile face-up and play it onto the open ends of the layout, if they can. Ends must connect with matching number of pips (that is the domino term for the dots on the domino). If the player can play on an open end,  his/her turn continues until a tile can not be played. The tile that can not be played is then returned to his/her row of tiles on the opposite side it was taken from. If the tile returned to the row is a double it can remain face-up. This double can be played on his/her own turn at any time.

• If a double is played it becomes a”spinner” and dominoes may played on both sides and on both ends

•  Play continues until someone has no dominoes left or play is blocked and no player can set a domino. When the round is over the player who dominoed (or used all their tiles) or the person with the lowest number of pips on their tiles is the winner of that round.

• Scoring: The winner of the round counts the total number of pips on all of the other player’s tiles and subtracts the number of pips on their own tiles.

• Continue playing rounds until someone earns 200 points (or whatever point goal you set at the beginning.)

 

Some Fun Domino Vocabulary (Cause it is just more fun to call them pips) 

Pips – The name for the dots on the dominoes.

Spinner – A double in the layout which may played on both sides and both ends. Each domino game has a rule about spinners: a) There are no spinners; b) Only the first double played is a spinner; or, c) All doubles are spinners.

Boneyard – The tiles that are purposely not drawn at the beginning of the game, so that players can draw from the boneyard during the game when they do not hold a playable tile in their hand. If tiles are all distributed in the game except for a pile of “extras” that can’t be evenly distributed among the players, this pile of dominoes are referred to as “widows”.

Arm- A row of dominoes in a straight line in the layout of a matching or scoring game.

Come see our 10 Great Domino Games for Children Blog for more Domino Game Ideas.