Five Up Dominoes Game Rules

  • In Five Up Dominoes game, players try to match all scoring ends of the layout on their turn so that its total is a multiple of five which is scored immediately by the player. In addition winner of each round scores bonus points at the end of each round.
  • Each player gets 5 tiles at the beginning of each round.
  • Remaining tiles are set aside forming a boneyard.
  • First turn or lead is decided by a draw of lot (each player draws one tile and highest tile starts the round). In subsequent rounds player winning the previous round starts first. If there was no winner for the previous round then lead is again decided by draw of lot.
  • Turn can be started with any tile and then subsequent tiles can be played at the open ends of the layout.
  • In Five Up all doubles are spinners which means tiles can be placed on all four edges of the double.
  • If a player can not play, then he/she must draw from the boneyard until either he/she gets a playable tile or the boneyard has no tile left.
  • If player draws a tile which can be immediately played, then it must be played.
  • If player can not play a tile and can not draw from the boneyard either, then he/she simply passes the turn to next player.
  • The round ends if a player has played all of his/her tiles. Round can also end if the game is blocked which means no tile can be played by any of the players.
  • After a player plays a tile, all open ends of the layout are totaled and if the total is a multiple of five (5, 10 etc.), then player immediately scores that total divided by five.
  • Doubles at the end of an arm in the layout are worth its pips count. Once two tiles are placed on a double, its pip count is not considered in the total (even though it may have one or two edges available to place tiles).
  • The open ends of the arms on all four edges of a double are counted in the score.
  • First player playing all his/her tiles wins the round. If the game is blocked then player with the lowest pips count in his/her hand wins.
  • After the round ends, pips on all remaining tiles of all players are counted and rounded up or down to nearest multiple of five and then divided by five which is scored by the winner of that round.
  • The game is played for multiple rounds and player with highest score above 100 wins.
  • Though players score during the game play, game can only finish after end of a round. It is possible that the first player to reach the score of 100 is not the winner if the round is won by another player who after adding the bonus points has the highest overall score.
  • The other variants of this game are Muggins (no spinner) and All fives (first double is a spinner).
  • Reference Rules: pagat.com