Match Your Ends. Play Your Angles.
Dominoes Has a Seat at The Den.
Dominoes is a familiar table with a little strategy underneath — simple rules, quiet decisions, and plenty of room for conversation. Whether you're settling in for a relaxed game or grinding out every last pip, there's a set waiting and a chair open next to it.
Come for the game. Stay for the company.
The Basics
One Set. Twenty-Eight Tiles. Endless Angles.
Dominoes is built on a simple set of tiles and one core rule — match an end. Everything else is strategy layered on top.
01
The Set & The Deal
Twenty-eight tiles, shuffled face down, dealt into hands.
A standard double-six set has 28 tiles, each split into two ends showing 0 through 6 pips, running from the blank-blank up through the double-six. The tiles are shuffled face down and each player draws a hand.
Two players typically draw seven tiles each; three or four players usually draw five each. Whatever's left face down becomes the boneyard.
28 Tiles Total
Double-Six Set
2–4 Players
Draw Your Hand
02
Matching Ends
Every tile you play has to connect to what's already down.
Play starts with a single tile on the table, and every tile after it must be placed so one of its ends matches a number already open on the layout — a 4 to a 4, a blank to a blank.
Doubles are the exception: they're laid crosswise across the line, and they open up play in a new direction as well as the original one.
Read the open ends. That's the whole game.
How a Hand Plays Out
Deal. Play. Score.
A hand of dominoes moves through the same three stages every time — and the tiles you're holding shape every decision along the way.
01
The Deal
Everyone starts blind, then the table starts talking.
The 28 tiles are shuffled face down and each player draws their hand — traditionally seven tiles for two players or five tiles for three or four players. Whatever remains face down forms the boneyard.
Traditionally, whoever holds the highest double — most often the double-six — plays it first to open the game. After that, turns move in order around the table.
28 Tiles Total
Highest Double Opens
Rest Form Boneyard
The tiles are set. Now it's about reading the table.
02
Playing Your Tiles
Match an end, keep your hand moving, and watch what opens up.
On your turn, you play a tile from your hand by matching one of its ends to an open end on the layout. If nothing in your hand fits, what happens next depends on the variant being played — you either draw from the boneyard until you find a playable tile, or you simply pass.
Doubles get played crosswise and open a new branch to build from, which means the layout rarely stays a simple straight line for long.
Must Match an End
Doubles Play Crosswise
Draw or Pass If Stuck
Every open end is a decision. Every decision changes the next player's options.
03
Ending & Scoring the Hand
Go out clean, or grind it to a block.
A hand ends one of two ways. If a player plays their very last tile, they've gone domino — an outright win for that hand, and they score the pip total still sitting in every other player's hand.
If nobody can play and the boneyard is empty, the game is blocked. Every player counts the pips left in their hand, and whoever is holding the lowest total wins the round.
Hands are played one after another, adding to a running score, until a partnership or player reaches a target total — commonly 100 points.
Domino = Instant Win
Blocked = Lowest Pips Wins
Score = Opponents' Pips
The tile you're holding at the end matters as much as the one you just played.
Block
Can't play? You pass.
If nothing in your hand matches an open end, your turn simply passes to the next player — no drawing, no do-overs.
Draw
Can't play? Draw until you can.
If you don't have a match, you draw tiles from the boneyard one at a time until you find a playable tile or the boneyard runs out.
Block
Hands stay exactly as dealt
Every tile you'll ever hold was in your original hand, so memory and tile-counting matter from the very first play.
Draw
Hands keep changing
New tiles keep entering the game until the boneyard empties, so the table stays looser and harder to predict.
Block
Built for a tighter, faster game
With fewer tiles in circulation, blocked hands come sooner and every open end carries a little more weight.
Draw
Built for a longer, deeper game
More tiles moving through more hands means longer rounds — and more chances to play your way out of a rough start.
New to Dominoes?
Pull Up a Chair
You don't need years at the table to enjoy dominoes at The Den. It's a game of simple rules and quiet strategy — and every regular started with a hand where nothing seemed to fit.
If you're new to the game, ask our team to walk you through a hand before you sit down.
And if you already know how to work an open end?
Your tile's ready.
Doubles & The Long Game
Patience Wins as Often as Points.
Dominoes rewards patience as much as memory — keeping track of which numbers are still out, holding a heavy double for the right opening, and reading how the layout is likely to close. Over a long session, it's usually the player still counting pips who comes out ahead.
Every Tile Tells a Story
Dominoes Rewards the Patient Player.
The Den brings the table, the tiles and the company. Learn the layout. Match your ends. Find your regular table. Stay for another hand.
Your tiles. Your table. Your seat.
