Fives and Threes with partners: the four-player game
How the four-player partnership game works: partners opposite, 7 tiles each, no boneyard, one shared score to 61, and the tactics that follow from it.
Long suits: why many of one number controls the line
Each number is on 7 of the 28 tiles. How often a 7-tile hand holds 4 or more of one, and how the rest of the suit shrinks for your opponent.
Heavy tiles: when to get rid of high-spot dominoes
Six of the 28 dominoes carry 9 or more spots, 61 of the set's 168. Why that weight matters when you go out first, and when to hold a heavy tile.
Fives and Threes against All Fives: two ways to score
All Fives scores only on multiples of five. Fives and Threes also scores threes. Both systems compared total by total, with the points for each.
Starting with 6, 7, 8 or 9 tiles: what hand size changes
A bigger starting hand shrinks the boneyard from 16 tiles to 10 and cuts the chance of holding no tile for a number from 14.4% to 4.3%.
Playing to 61: how pub dominoes borrowed the cribbage board
Fives and Threes targets of 61, 121, 181 and 241 are cribbage board lengths: 60 holes a lap plus one. What each target means for the number of scoring turns.
Drawing from the boneyard in Fives and Threes
Rules for drawing differ between tables. Counting tiles gives the chance a draw is playable: 60% with two different ends, 30% when both ends match.
Blocking in Fives and Threes: playing to deny a score
Your move decides which ends the opponent faces. A worked example compares scoring 3 and risking 8 with scoring 0 and risking 2, with the arithmetic.
Every scoring end total in Fives and Threes, 3 to 20
Nine end totals between 3 and 20 score in Fives and Threes. Each one with its points, the ends that make it, and why 16, 17 and 19 never pay.
Inside a double-six set: 28 tiles and 168 spots
A double-six set holds 28 tiles, 7 doubles and 168 spots. Each number sits on 7 tiles and 8 ends, and a total of 6 is the most common.
Counting tiles in Fives and Threes: what they cannot hold
Every number sits on exactly seven tiles of a double-six set. Count yours, count the line, and a draw tells you which tiles your opponent cannot hold.
Doubles at an open end in Fives and Threes
A double at an open end counts both its spots in Fives and Threes. Laying a double on a matching end adds that many spots to the total. Here is what it does.
Choosing your opening tile in Fives and Threes
Fourteen of the 28 tiles score as an opener, for 1 to 4 points. The 6-3 scores 3 and hands back 8. Which openers are worth leading, and which are not.
Why 15 is the best total in Fives and Threes
Fifteen scores 8 points in Fives and Threes and no other total passes 6. It is also rare: only two pairs of open ends make it. Here is why, with the counts.
How Fives and Threes scoring works, with worked examples
Fives and Threes scores the two open ends: a total divisible by 3 scores a third, by 5 a fifth, and 15 scores both for 8. Every total, worked out.