Block Dominoes Strategy for Beginners: Seven Habits That Win Hands

Block Dominoes hands you seven tiles and one decision per turn: which tile, and which end. Nobody draws from a pile, so the tiles you are dealt are the tiles you finish with, minus the ones you manage to play. The deal is luck. What you do with it is not, and the seven habits below cover most of what a beginner can do about it.

1. Play the doubles you can, while you can

A mixed tile fits two numbers: 6-3 goes on a 6 end or a 3 end. A double fits one. The 6-6 goes on a 6 end and nowhere else, and if the sixes get covered up on both ends it sits in your hand until the line offers a 6 again, which it may never do. There are seven doubles in the set, and each one is waiting for a single number to appear. When that number is showing and you hold its double, play it, unless one of the habits below gives you a specific reason not to. The 6-6 is 12 pips; the 5-5 is 10. Those are the tiles you least want to be holding when the hand ends.

2. Shed heavy tiles

Two rules make pips matter. When nobody can play, the hand is blocked and the lowest pip total wins it. And whoever wins a hand, by going out or by holding the least in a block, scores the pips left in every other hand. So every pip you hold is a point you may hand to someone else. Between two tiles that are equally playable, prefer the heavier one: 6-5 is 11 pips, 1-0 is one. A double counts twice its number, so 4-4 is eight, not four.

3. Keep a hand that matches both ends

After your play there will be two open numbers. If you still hold a tile for each of them, one opponent's move can change at most one end, and you keep a play on the other. With three opponents moving between your turns this is not a guarantee, but covering one end is a single point of failure and covering both is not. The Medium and Hard computer opponents score exactly this: two points for every tile still in hand that matches an open end after the move.

4. Before each play, look at what each end will show afterwards

A tile has two numbers. The one that touches the line disappears from view; the other becomes the new open end. So the question to ask before every play is not “does this fit?” but “after this, what will the two ends show, and do I hold those numbers?” If a tile fits both ends, the same question tells you which end to use. Habits 1 to 3 are all applied through this one. The worked hand at the end of this article goes through it twice.

5. Count one number, then more

Each number from 0 to 6 appears on exactly seven tiles: six mixed tiles and its double. Every tile on the line and every tile in your hand is visible to you, so for any number you can work out how many tiles carrying it are still unseen. Start with one number, the one you care about most, usually the number of a double you hold or of an end you want to keep. The subtraction is the whole method.

In the position above, four tiles are on the line and six are in your hand, so 28 - 4 - 6 = 18 tiles are unseen, six in each opponent's hand. Three of those 18 carry a 6. Once one number is comfortable, add the two numbers on the open ends. Ones: 3-1 is on the line and 5-1 is in your hand, so 7 - 1 - 1 = 5 unseen ones (1-0, 1-1, 1-2, 1-4, 1-6). Fives: 5-6 is on the line and 5-1 is in your hand, so five unseen fives as well (5-0, 5-2, 5-3, 5-4, 5-5). The odds that follow from counts like these are worked through in the mathematics of Block Dominoes.

6. Write down, or remember, passes

A pass is the most reliable fact you will get all hand. It proves the player held neither open number at that moment, and because nobody draws, it stays true until the hand ends. Note the player and the two numbers showing when they passed, on paper if you are playing at a table. Later, when you can choose which number to leave on an end, leave one that a player has passed on. The Hard computer opponent does precisely this, with a large bonus for any play that leaves an end showing a number an opponent has passed on. What else a pass and a play tell you is the subject of reading opponents in Block Dominoes.

7. Do not block for its own sake

A blocked hand is won by the lowest pip total. Steering the ends to numbers nobody can play is only worth doing when that lowest total is yours, or when you can see it will be. A beginner who strands the other players while still holding 6-6 and 5-5 has organised a block that somebody else wins, and then scores their 22 pips. Shed weight first; consider blocking when your hand is light and the line is running out of numbers. When that moment arrives, the decisions are set out in the Block Dominoes endgame.

A worked hand

Four players, so all 28 tiles are dealt and nothing is set aside. Play passes from you to the player on your left, then the top seat, then the player on your right, which is the order the game on this site uses. You are dealt the hand below.

The opening is forced, which is a small mercy: the heaviest tile in the set leaves your hand at once. Left plays 6-3 on it, Top plays 3-5, and Right plays 5-2. It is your turn again.

You hold 6-2, 5-5, 5-1, 4-3, 3-0 and 2-1. Only two of them fit: 6-2, which fits either end, and 2-1, which fits the 2 on the right. That gives three possible plays, and habit 4 says to look at what each leaves behind.

• 6-2 on the right 2 end. The 2 touches the line and the new right end shows 6, so both ends show 6. You would hold no six at all. Reject it.
• 2-1 on the right 2 end. Ends become 6 and 1. You keep 6-2 for the 6 and 5-1 for the 1, so both ends are covered (habit 3), but you shed only three pips and still hold the 8-pip 6-2.
• 6-2 on the left 6 end. Ends become 2 and 2. You shed eight pips (habit 2) and keep 2-1 for the 2. Better still, whichever 2 the next player puts down, you hold a tile for the number it leaves: 2-0 leaves a 0 end and you hold 3-0; 2-3 leaves a 3 end and you hold 4-3 and 3-0; 2-4 leaves a 4 end and you hold 4-3; 2-2 leaves the 2 and you hold 2-1. Those four are the only twos not yet played or in your hand.

You play 6-2 on the left. Your hand is now 5-5, 5-1, 4-3, 3-0, 2-1, a total of 10 + 6 + 7 + 3 + 3 = 29 pips. The 5-5 is the worry: it needs a 5 end, and there is none. Count the fives (habit 5). Two are on the line, 3-5 and 5-2, and two are in your hand, 5-5 and 5-1, so 7 - 2 - 2 = 3 fives are unseen: 5-0, 5-4 and 5-6.

Left plays 2-4 on the right end, Top plays 4-1 on it, and Right passes. Write that down: Right holds no 2 and no 1, and will hold none for the rest of the hand (habit 6).

Two of your five tiles fit: 2-1, on either end, and 5-1, on the right. Playing 2-1 on the left makes the ends 1 and 1; playing it on the right makes them 2 and 2. Either way Right, who holds neither number, could not play, and a beginner who has just learned about passes may find that tempting. But it sheds three pips, leaves your 5-5 with no route to the line, and the block it aims at is not one you would win: you would still hold 5-5, 5-1, 4-3 and 3-0, which is 10 + 6 + 7 + 3 = 26 pips (habit 7).

So play 5-1 on the right 1 end. The ends become 2 and 5. Right still cannot use the 2, and needs one of the three unseen fives to play at all. If the 5 end is still showing when the turn comes back to you, your 5-5 goes down on it (habit 1). You have shed six pips rather than three, your hand is 5-5, 4-3, 3-0, 2-1, a total of 23, and you hold a tile for the 2 end.

Practising against the computer

The three difficulty levels below the game table map onto these habits. Easy plays the first legal tile in its hand, so it is a good opponent while you practise counting without pressure. Medium scores every legal move for doubles, weight and the tiles it keeps for the open ends, which is habits 1 to 3 with fixed weights. Hard adds a preference for setting both ends to one number, for numbers few unseen tiles still carry, and for numbers opponents have passed on. Over 6,000 simulated hands per matchup, Medium beat Easy 59.6% of the time, Hard beat Easy 63.2%, and Hard beat Medium 54.6%. Hard's extra signals are habits 5 and 6 applied with fixed weights, so it is the level to measure yourself against once the first six habits feel automatic.