Counting your pile at the end of a hand

When the last trick is in, each side has a little stack of dominoes in front of somebody. You need to know how many points are in it. There is a quick way.

First, a few words.

A trick is one round of play: each of the four players puts down one domino, and the highest one takes all four. There are 28 dominoes in a double-six set, and each player draws 7, so every hand has exactly 7 tricks.

The count is the five dominoes that carry points on their own. You can spot them because their spots add up to 5 or to 10:

• The double-five (5-5) is worth 10.
• The six-four (6-4) is worth 10.
• The five-blank (5-0) is worth 5.
• The four-ace (4-1) is worth 5.
• The trey-deuce (3-2) is worth 5.

The tens get called dimes. The fives get called nickels. Blank means zero spots, ace means one, deuce two, trey three.

Every trick is also worth 1 point, no matter what is in it. So the hand adds up like this: 7 points for the 7 tricks, plus 10 and 10 for the dimes, plus 5, 5 and 5 for the nickels. That is 7 + 35 = 42.

Here is how to count your pile:

1. Count the tricks. Four dominoes to a trick, so if you have 12 dominoes, you took 3 tricks. That is 3 points. 2. Pull out any domino whose spots add to 5 or 10. Add 10 for each dime and 5 for each nickel. 3. Add the two numbers.

Say your side has 16 dominoes, with the six-four and the trey-deuce in there. Sixteen dominoes is 4 tricks, so 4 points. The six-four is 10 and the trey-deuce is 5. That is 19.

You can check yourself, too. Both sides' totals have to come to 42. If you have 19, they should have 23. If they say 25, somebody counted wrong, and it is worth looking before you write it down.

One more thing. A domino like the six-ace or the five-ace has spots that add to 7 or 6. Those are not count. Only 5 and 10 pay. The double-blank adds to zero, and it is not count either.