Whether you’re an experienced domino player with strategies honed over decades or a novice eager to learn the game, online domino offers a platform that caters to your needs. Many sites feature multiple games, varying difficulty levels, interactive tutorials, global leaderboards, and more. Some offer a competitive edge by providing the chance to win real cash prizes as you play.
Most online domino games revolve around the laying down of a series of tiles, called a domino chain. The goal is to remove your tiles from the board before the other players can. Depending on the type of game, players score points based on the number of exposed ends of their remaining tiles and the number of doubles in their chains.
To begin playing online domino, select a game from the list of options and click play. Then, follow the instructions for that particular game to establish the rules and strategy. Then, start experimenting with different game variations to discover your favorite. You can also choose to play a practice game against the computer or another player before you play a live match.
The game of dominoes has a wide range of rules, but most of them fall into four categories: bidding games, blocking games, scoring games, and round games. Before each game, the players shuffle the tiles face down on a flat playing surface, thoroughly mixing them by moving their hands. The player to the left of the first player to make a play usually does the shuffling. In some cases, the winning player from the previous game may do the shuffling for the current game.
Once the dominoes are shuffled, each player draws the number of tiles specified by the game’s rules for his hand. Each player then places his tiles in front of him so that the other players can’t see the pips on them. The player who has the highest double is allowed to place it first.
Sometimes a player may draw more dominoes for his hand than is allowed, which is known as an overdraw. If a player discovers an overdraw, he must immediately return the extra dominoes to the stock and draw the correct number of tiles for his hand.
Some games require that a player play a tile that has the same amount of pips as one of the exposed ends of the existing domino chain. This is called blocking the chain and it can prevent the opponent from completing a turn or scoring any points. The player who plays the blocker can also add a tile that has matching pips with an open end of the already-played domino to further strengthen the block.
The best way to become a better online domino player is to play against other players and develop your strategies for blocking, removing tiles from the board, and scoring points. There are several ways to do this, including joining a community of online dominoes players on the internet or playing a game on your smartphone or tablet.