Domino is an exciting game of skill and strategy. A domino is a rectangular piece of a material such as bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory, or dark hardwoods like ebony with an arrangement of spots or “pips,” similar to those on a die, except that some squares are blank (indicated in this listing by a zero). Each face bears a number indicating the value of the domino when played, which may be a single point, a pair, a triplet, or a quadruplet. A domino may also be a square of metal or ceramic clay, or even frosted glass or crystal.
Dominoes are used for both games of chance and skill, as well as for art projects. They can be used to create curved lines, grids that form pictures when they fall, stacked walls, or 3D structures like towers and pyramids. In addition to being fun to play, dominoes can help children learn numbers and shapes. They can also teach the concept of probability, since each domino is a potential trigger for the next one to fall.
The word domino comes from the Latin dominus, meaning “lord” or “master.” Traditionally, a domino set is composed of twenty-six double tiles, each with an equal number of pips. A player makes a play by placing a domino on the table, either onto another domino or directly on the line of play. If a player is to make the first play of a given game, that player will draw the highest domino from the stock and place it on the table.
A player must then match the pips on the open end of the domino in order to continue playing it. If a tile is placed on the line of play with matching halves on both sides, it is considered part of the line of play and the count will increase. The other half of the double can then be placed on its own, creating a new line of play and increasing the count once again.
If no one is able to make another play, the game will end. Some games have rules specifying that the first play must be made by the player with the heaviest hand, or by the winner of an earlier game. In other cases, the players must draw additional dominoes from the stock to break ties.
The domino effect is a phenomenon in which an initial event prompts a series of subsequent events that can have a profound impact. It can be seen in political movements, such as the Arab Spring, when a single event can lead to many other events and changes that may seem unrelated at first but ultimately have a large and lasting influence. Similarly, when an author writes a scene in his or her book, that scene can be like a domino that affects the entire plot of the novel. It is important to understand this effect when writing fiction, so that each domino will naturally advance the story.