The Game of Domino
Domino, a cousin of playing cards, originated in China in the 1300s. Today, the tumbling tiles are used for an incredible array of games and displays of skill. We’ve all seen a lineup of hundreds or thousands of dominoes, set up in careful sequence and then toppled with the slightest nudge of just one. In fact, there are professional domino shows that feature builders who create intricate and spectacular setups for audiences to marvel at.
There are many types of domino games, but they all fall into two categories: blocking and scoring games. Blocking games, such as matador and Mexican train, involve placing a domino edge-to-edge against another to prevent a player from making a play until they empty their hands. Scoring games, such as bergen and muggins, count the number of spots (or pips) in each tile to determine the winner. The game also teaches kids about number recognition and counting.
The most common domino sets are double six and double nine, with 28 and 55 tiles respectively. But larger sets exist for more complex games or for players who want to build impressively long domino chains. Each domino has a specific pattern of spots, or pips, that are arranged in suits. For example, a single domino with the number three has a suit of threes and a suit of blanks or zeros.
A domino is a rectangular piece of material with a pattern of dots on both sides, usually square, but sometimes round or other shapes. It is divided into a large area of identically patterned tiles, and a smaller area with blank or matchingly patterned tiles. The dominoes are usually arranged in a suit, such as spades or hearts, with alternating colors. There are also mixed suits, with some tiles of each color, and a random assortment of other colors as well.
Dominoes are functionally identical to playing cards, but they are often used in place of them due to religious prohibitions on the use of cards. Early dominoes were made with ebony black and ivory pieces to mimic the look of a priest’s surplice.
In fiction writing, a domino effect is the way in which a small action causes a chain reaction that impacts many other events. For example, if a character uncovers a clue that will lead to the solution of a mystery, that discovery will naturally influence other scenes in the story. This is why writers use outlines and tools like Scrivener to plan their stories ahead of time; without them, scenes might not be at the right angle or have enough impact on the ones that come before them. Domino is also an apt metaphor for the way in which a small action can cause big changes, and how those effects are amplified when they go unnoticed or ignored. As we’ve seen, this principle applies to business as well. Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan realized the power of this principle when he began advertising that his company could deliver a pizza in 30 minutes or less.