How to Play Dominoes with 4 Players

Four players is the classic family table: everyone gets a small hand of a 28-tile double-six set, and the game moves quickly. You can play every player for themselves, or in two teams of two.

Setup for 4 players

Each player takes 5 tiles. In Draw and All Fives the other 8 tiles stay face down as the boneyard; in Block there is no boneyard and the 8 undealt tiles stay out of play. The player with the highest double starts, and if nobody has a double the heaviest tile starts.

How a round plays out

Turns pass around the table. Match a tile to one of the two open ends and place doubles across the line. In Draw and All Fives, a player who cannot play draws from the boneyard until a tile fits and may pass only when it is empty. In Block, a player who cannot play passes. The round ends when one player is out of tiles or when nobody can play.

Team play, 2 vs 2

In a private room with four seats the host can switch on Team play. Partners sit opposite each other and share one team score, the sum of both partners' points. When a player goes out, their team collects the pips left in the two opponents' hands; the partner's tiles do not count. In a blocked round, the team with the lower combined pips wins. The first team to reach the target score wins the match.

Scoring and target score

Without teams, the winner of a round scores the pips left in the other three hands. In All Fives you also score during play whenever the open ends add up to a multiple of five, and leftover pips are rounded to the nearest five. Draw and Block matches go to 100 points; All Fives goes to 150.

Tips for four players

Of the 23 tiles you cannot see, 15 are in the other players' hands and 8 are in the boneyard before any draws. Small hands run out fast, so shed your heaviest tiles early to limit what you give away when someone goes out.

4-player dominoes: questions

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