Domino

Author: !Undertaker!

BrainKing.com is a success with a brilliant organization. Site has tournaments, ratings, forums, statistics and specially many and many games. However, there are games very interesting and known, but unfortunatelly don’t exist in BrainKing.com. So, I propose a new game: Domino.

Domino History
Dominoes are the descendants of dice sticks and dice. Although possibly used as a method of divination, fortune telling and certainly for gambling there is no doubt that dominoes have developed and evolved as a popular form of entertainment in which all players, regardless of literacy skills, can enjoy exciting games of chance and skill. Believed to originate from early Chinese tile games in 12th and 13th centuries, dominoes their more identifiable form of the game as we know now it was first recorded in 14th century China. The game appears to have reached western civilization when it first became popular in the courts of Mediterranean Europe trading nations in the 1700’s. Its popularity then spread though the rest of Europe in the 18th century and the game became known by the French word referring to a black and white hood often worn by catholic priests in cold weather, “Domino”.

The Domino
Traditional dominoes tiles are rectangular with a centre line dividing the domino face into two ends. Each end being marked black spots, commonly referred to as pips, arranged similar to those on a six-sided die (dice). It has become popular to also add a blank face to the domino set so that there seven possibilities on each domino end. A standard set of double six dominoes includes seven dominoes tile combinations featuring a blank (including a blank-blank), six with a one (including a 1-1), five with a two (including 2-2), four with a three and so on for a total of 28 unique dominoes. For longer games, games with more people or rule variations (such as Chicken Foot or Mexican Train) other domino sets such as double 9’s (55 tiles), double 12’s (91 tiles) and even double 18 (190 tiles) domino sets have become available.
Metal pins or studs were also inserted into the face of the domino between the two halves are known as “spinners” or spinner dominoes. These allowed the dominoes to spin more freely and make them easier to mix or shuffle while face down, as well as helping to protect the face of the dominoes.
Originally used to reduce cheating, at one point dominoes where made with ebony, matching the black pips, or another material on the back of the domino to prevent being able to see pips the face of the domino while they were face down. This two tone or bi-colour feature today is used to simply to add professional and unique look to a set of dominoes.
Modern commercial are mostly made from a durable resin and although they are available in a variety of sizes, materials and colours the traditional domino is ivory (off white/cream) coloured with black pips and usually measures about 1 inch long, ½ inch wide and ¼ inch thick.