How to Play
- Four players in two partnerships (partners sit across from each other), or Cutthroat mode where everyone plays for themselves.
- Each player is dealt seven dominoes.
- The first hand opens with whoever holds double-six; later hands open based on how the previous hand ended.
- Play goes around the table in order. On your turn, play a domino that matches one of the two open ends of the chain.
- If you have no domino that matches either end, you pass.
- A hand ends normally when a player plays their last domino, or ends in a block when no one at the table can play.
- When a hand is blocked, the side holding fewer total pips in hand usually wins that hand.
- Scoring and some optional rules (like whether identical resulting ends count as a key) follow whatever you've set in Preferences.
Online Play
Online Play always uses a four-seat table: Seat 1 (You/Host), Seat 2, Seat 3 (Partner), Seat 4. Partners sit opposite each other (Seat 1 & Seat 3, Seat 2 & Seat 4), and play goes counterclockwise: 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 1. Each phone shows the table from that player's own seat, so what you see as "You" and "Partner" may show differently on someone else's screen.
Create a room: Preferences → Online Play → "Create Private Game." Set your name, Game Mode, Scoring Mode, and choose Human or AI (and which AI) for each of Seats 2, 3 and 4, then tap "Create Room." You get a room code and a shareable link — send either one to the people joining you.
Join a room: Preferences → Online Play → "Join Private Game." Enter your name and the 4-character room code (opening a shared link fills the code in for you), then tap "Join Room." You're placed automatically in the next open human seat — seats aren't chosen by the joining player and can't currently be swapped afterward.
How many humans: however you set Seats 2–4 at creation — any left as AI are filled by that AI engine. One human plays with an AI partner against two AI opponents; two humans are partners if Seat 3 is human, or opponents (each with an AI partner) if Seat 2 or Seat 4 is human instead; three humans leaves one AI filling whichever seat wasn't set to human; four humans means no AI players at all.
Starting: the host taps "Start Game" once every seat configured as human has joined — the game won't start automatically or with an unfilled human seat. Game Mode, Scoring Mode, each seat's Human/AI setting and AI engine, and player names are all set by the host and shared with everyone in the room.
AI Players
Standard AI — Solid conventional play. Uses probability, tactics, tile patterns and basic partnership information to choose its moves.
Strategic AI — Jamaican partnership strategy. Pays closer attention to passes, partner signals, suit development, supported doubles, control, blocking opportunities and partnership coordination.
Reasoning AI — Deeper calculation and planning. Adds forward analysis, consistent hidden-tile reasoning and planning to evaluate how likely future play may develop.
These are three different approaches to the game, not a simple easy/medium/hard ladder — though Reasoning AI is intended to provide the richest analysis.
Why This Play vs. Analyze Play
Why This Play explains the information and reasoning the AI actually used when it made the move.
Analyze Play independently reviews the move afterward, using only information that was legitimately knowable at that point in the hand.
Useful Terms
- Pose — The opening play of a hand.
- Pass — Declining your turn because no domino in your hand matches either open end.
- Blocked hand — A hand that ends because no player at the table can make a legal play.
- Key — A bonus win worth extra points instead of the usual one. The exact conditions depend on your Preferences.