Venezuelan dominoes rules

The table

Four seats and two teams. Your partner sits across from you, and play goes to the right.

Twenty-eight tiles, from double blank to double six, seven each. None are left over, so partners never draw.

The opening

The double six opens the first hand, and whoever holds it must lead with it.

If the table prefers, draw for it instead: everyone turns over a tile, and the most pips opens with any tile. Between equal pips a double wins, and if it is still level, the tied players draw again.

Who opens the later hands is chosen before the match starts. In turn, the opening passes to the player on the right. With the winner, whoever won the last hand opens, and after a tied block the same player opens again. Any tile can open.

Your turn

Play a tile that matches one of the two open ends. If you have nothing that fits, you pass and the table goes on.

The app never picks an end for you.

Going out

Whoever plays their last tile goes out, and their team scores the pips left in the two hands across. Your partner's tiles don't count.

Blocked

When nobody can play, the hand is blocked. The team with fewer pips between its two hands wins it and scores the other team's pips. If the totals are level, nobody scores.

The match

The first team to reach the target wins: 50, 100, 200 or any number from 10 to 500.

If a team ends the match without scoring a point, it's a shutout, a zapato.

1 on 1 and Three

When there aren't four of you, play head to head or three-handed, each for yourself, with seven tiles each. The tiles nobody is dealt stay in the boneyard: fourteen head to head and seven for three.

If you can't play, you draw from the boneyard until a tile fits, and play it. You only pass once the boneyard is empty.

With the double opening, the highest double dealt opens. If nobody was dealt a double, the highest tile opens.

Whoever goes out, or wins a block with the fewest pips, scores the pips of everyone else.