Fives Up - Strategy and Rules
All Fives, also called Fives Up game is played with a double six set or a double nine set. The dominoes are shuffled face down and each player automatically receives the correspondent number of dominoes.
Basic Rules
- The player that is the first to play is determined by a random draw. During subsequent rounds however, the first player is the one who managed to domino in the previous hand. If the previous hand was blocked, the first player will be the one that played the last bone.
- The remaining tiles are placed on the table and form the “boneyard”.
- The first player places a tile on the table and the other players are required to match their half-tiles with the ends of the chains on the table.
- The first double in the game is played as a spinner, which means it will be placed perpendicularly to the other tile, thus creating a four-way chain of dominoes.
- Only the first double is played as a spinner. When a spinner has tiles from both sides, tiles can then be matched on either end of the four exposed tile ends.
If a player can’t play a tile he must draw a tile from the bone yard until he can match a tile or until there are no more tiles left on the boneyard. The hand is played until all players are blocked or until a player dominoes.
- Scoring takes place at the end of each move so it's important for you to keep track of the bones you place in order to reach 5 or a multiple of 5 in every turn. Remember that the goal of the game is to accumulate as many points as possible as shown in the images below.
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Scoring and Blocking
- Placing doubles are the best opportunity to achieve really high scores in one move. In the image below it's possible to see how the values of the doubles are always worth their full value.
- The game strategy is not just about focusing on the score. It's also about finishing the tiles as soon as possible and trying to block the opponent.
In the example below it's possible to see a perfect situation of blocking where the user Domi007 has blocked the game, putting 6 in all the ends of the chains while the seven bones of the 6 are already on the dominoes table.
- In this specific case the opponent must take all the bones from the bone yard but the game is declared Blocked as all the players have passed, having no bones that match with the end of the chains.
- When the game is blocked, the points accumulated on the bones that remain, will go to the player with less points in his bones.
- Every game has rounds and will finish as soon as a player reaches the score target. Remember that each player has an established turn time to play, and if he doesn't move in the specified time, he will automatically be declared as defeated, thus losing his stake.
Strategy Tips
- In any domino game, the player who can count the outstanding tiles will have an advantage.
- Novice players don’t yet think in multiples of 5. They won’t look for a combination that yields 5. Instead, they will look for arms that end in 5.
- The highest possible score in one move is 36. A player can also gain 30 points with the 6-6 tile, along with tiles that show 6 on the remaining 3 arms.
- Try to leave the remaining total as small as possible to prevent the next player from maximizing its use.
- When you’re leading in the game, play a tile that’s worth 10 points in order to score at an early stage. To control the arms, play a double tile. When other players draw tiles you can deduce what the player was missing. If that player draws a tile and uses it, you can force the situation to end in tile values that he doesn’t have, thus forcing him to draw from the boneyard.
- You have 3 possible goals: scoring, blocking, or domino (i.e. placing the final tile). When playing to score (the most common strategy) try to get the highest score without caring which player dominoes.
When you play to block or domino, you’re playing to force a blocked game so that you will get the lowest negative score. This is a more sophisticated way to play and requires counting suites to make sure that there are no tiles with the suite on the arms of the tableau. Dominoing doesn’t necessarily mean that you will get the highest score in a hand.
Try to control the tiles in the game and get a specific suit on the arms of the table to guarantee that you can play on your next turn.
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