Chickenfoot Dominoes Rules

How to Play Chickenfoot Dominoes

Objective

Chicken Foot Dominoes also known as "Chickie Dominoes" is played by 2 or more players with aim to score lowest points at the end of all rounds. The game can be played with any of the domino sets such as double-six, double-nine, double-twelve etc.

Gameplay

Domino Set: double-six dominoes
At the beginning of the game all domino tiles (also called bones) are shuffled and each player is dealt 7 tiles. The remaining tiles are kept in the boneyard and can be drawn later on in the game. The game is played in rounds. Each round starts with a double. The game played with double-six domino set has 7 rounds.

First Round and First Turn

The first round starts with highest double which is 6-6 and then subsequent rounds start with next lower double (5-5, 4-4.. etc in sequence). The last round starts with double blank. The player who gets the double (required to start that particular round) gets the first turn. If no player has the double to start the round, then the player with highest tile (sum of both ends in the tile) starts first and draws a tile from the boneyard. If the player has drawn the double for that round, it can be immediately played, else turn is passed to the next player who also does the same thing. Both players take turns and keep drawing one tile from the boneyard until one player gets the double to start the round.

Subsequent Turns

Once starting double has been played in a round, next player can play a tile only if he has a tile with matching end to starting tile. There are four sides to the starting tile and all sides must be filled with the matching tile before other tiles can be played to open ends of other tiles. If player can not play a matching tile, he must draw a tile from the boneyard and play it immediately if possible. If not then pass the turn to next player. If at any time a double is played, its called a "Chickie". Now no other tile can be played to any of the open ends until 3 tiles have been played to the "Chickie". If there is no tile left in the boneyard to draw, turn is passed to the next player. The 3 tiles are placed in a certain way which resembles a chicken foot which is what the game is named after. Once 3 matching tiles are played on the "Chickie", normal play can resume and players are free to play any tile to any open end including 3 open ends of the tiles played on "Chickie".

End of Round

The round ends as soon as a player has played all his tiles. The round also ends in case none of the players has a matching tile to play and there was no tile left in the boneyard to draw. After end of the round all tiles are moved to the boneyard and shuffled and then 7 tiles are again dealt to each player for next round.

Scoring

At the end of each round, pips are counted for remaining tiles (if any) for each player which becomes player's score for the round. After all 7 rounds, the player with the lowest points wins the game.