How to Count Dominoes: Tracking What's Out and What's Left
The players who seem to know what's in your hand aren't guessing. They're subtracting. Here's the method, from the one fact you have to memorize to the endgame where you can name their last bone.
There's a moment at every serious table when somebody plays a bone and the person across from them says, quietly, "you got the six-three." And they do. It looks like a trick. It's arithmetic, and the arithmetic is small enough that anybody who plays a few nights a month can learn it.
This is the counting method for two-player Fives. It's also most of what separates the app's Shark from the Grown Folks table, and we'll explain what the Shark does in plain terms at the end. If you're still shaky on the rules, read How to Play Fives Dominoes first. If you want the payoff before the method, it's this: counting turns Tip 2 of our strategy guide, knowing the board's answer, from a guess into a fact.
The one fact: seven of everything
A double-six set has 28 bones. Every number from blank through six appears on exactly seven of them: its double, plus one bone pairing it with each of the other six numbers. Seven sixes. Seven fives. Seven blanks.
That's the memorization. Everything below is subtraction from seven. A couple of side facts for the curious: the set carries 168 pips in total (each number sits on eight halves, since the double counts twice), the average bone is worth 6, and a seven-bone hand averages 42 pips. You'll use that last one in blocked games.
What you know at the deal
Before anybody plays, you already know a lot. You're holding 7 bones. That leaves 21 you can't see: 7 in their hand and 14 face down in the boneyard. Every bone you hold is a bone they don't, so your hand is the first entry in the count.
Suppose you pulled the 6-6, 6-2, 5-1, 4-4, 3-0, 2-1 and 1-0. Before the first play you know that two of the seven sixes are yours, so at most five are in play against you. You hold two of the sevens ones, two of the twos, and so on. Write nothing down. Just notice the sixes, because sixes and fives are where the money is.
Count by suit, not by bone
Nobody can remember 28 bones in the middle of a hand with Auntie talking. Nobody needs to. Ask one question per number: how many of these are gone? "Gone" means on the board or in your hand. The answer is a number from zero to seven, and it only goes up.
Mid-hand, with that same hand of yours, the board holds a 6-4 and a 6-1. Count the sixes: two on the board, two in your hand. Four gone. Three sixes left in the world: the 6-5, the 6-3, and the 6-0. Each is either in their hand or in the boneyard. You don't know which yet. But you know the six is not dead, and you know exactly which three bones could be waiting for you if you expose one.
Do this for the suit on each open end, every turn. Two numbers, two counts. When a new bone hits the table it moves two counts up by one (or one count up by one, for a double). It takes less time than deciding what to say about it.
Reading their draws
The rules force your opponent to draw when nothing in their hand matches an open end, and to keep drawing until something does. That rule is the best gift the game gives a counter. A draw isn't just a bone leaving the boneyard. It's a statement about their whole hand.
Say the ends show 6 and 2 and they go to the boneyard. At that instant, not one bone in their hand carried a six or a two. Back to the sixes: you had the 6-5, 6-3 and 6-0 unaccounted for. Now you know all three were in the boneyard when they drew, or one of them is the bone they just pulled. Same for every two you haven't seen. Two entire suits just moved from "somewhere" to "not in their hand, as of one turn ago."
That knowledge decays as they draw and play, but slowly. If they drew one bone and played it, their original hand still holds no sixes and no twos. You can lead sixes into them for turns.
Reading passes and choices
A pass is a draw with the boneyard empty, so it says the same thing permanently: nothing in their hand matches either end, and nothing is coming in to change that. If the ends read 4 and 5 and they knock, they hold no fours and no fives, full stop, until one of those ends changes.
Their choices talk too, a little more quietly. Most players take a score when they see one. So when they make a play that doesn't score, the board's answers, the bones that would have scored on the board they faced, probably weren't in their hand. It's not proof. People miss dimes. But it's a lean, and over a hand the leans add up. The count after every play is explained in Dominoes Scoring: Counting the Open Ends.
The dead suit
When the count for a number hits seven, that number is dead. Every bone that carries it is on the board or in your hand, so an open end showing it is a wall. Your opponent can't play there. Ever. If you're the one who put the seventh six on the board, you know something they may not have noticed yet.
This is how blocks get built on purpose. With one dead end, half the board is closed to them and every play they make comes off the other end, which makes their hand easy to read. With two dead ends, nobody can play, the boneyard runs out, and the lighter hand takes the difference. Building a block is a counting exercise first and a courage exercise second: you have to stop taking nicks and start closing doors. The rules and the payoff are in Blocked Dominoes: Who Wins and How It's Scored.
The endgame: name their hand
The moment the boneyard empties, the fog lifts. There are only three places a bone can be now: the board, your hand, or theirs. So 28 minus the bones on the board minus the bones in your hand equals their hand, not roughly, exactly. If you've been counting by suit, you'll already have a good idea. If you haven't, you can still do it now, one number at a time: which sixes aren't on the table and aren't in your hand? Those are theirs.
Once you can see their hand, the last few plays stop being a game and become a puzzle. Here's one.
A worked endgame, to the last bone
Boneyard empty. The open ends show 4 and 1. You hold two bones. Your count says they hold two bones as well: the 6-5 and the 3-2.
Line A: play the 4-2 on the 4. The ends become 2 and 1, a total of 3, no score. Their 6-5 matches neither end, so they're forced to play the 3-2 on the 2. Ends 3 and 1, no score. You play the 6-1 on the 1, exposing a six: 3 + 6 = 9, no score, but you're out. Domino. They're holding the 6-5, 11 pips, which rounds to 10 for you.
Line B: play the 6-1 on the 1. The ends become 4 and 6: 4 + 6 = 10, a dime. Their 3-2 matches neither end, so they're forced to play the 6-5 on the 6, exposing a five. Ends 4 and 5, total 9, nothing for them. You play the 4-2 on the 4: 2 + 5 = 7, no score, and you're out. Domino. They're holding the 3-2, 5 pips, which pays 5. Total for the line: 15.
Line B is worth five more points, and it's the one most people won't see, because it means exposing the six they've been waiting for all hand. Without the count, leaving them the six feels reckless. With the count, you know their six is the 6-5, you know what it exposes, and you know the 3-2 can't touch the board you leave. The "risky" play is the safe one.
Notice what made this solvable: not a good memory for 28 bones, just knowing that the boneyard was empty and that two bones were unaccounted for. That's the whole trick. Do it at the last three bones of every hand and you'll win hands you used to lose by one play.
A drill for real tables
Counting is a habit, and habits come from reps, not from reading. Here's a progression that works with real bones on a real table:
- One suit, one session. Pick the sixes. Every time a six hits the table, say the running count to yourself: "two," "three," "four." Ignore everything else. Do this for a whole night.
- Two suits. Sixes and fives, the two suits that pay the most. Same thing.
- The ends. Instead of fixed suits, count whatever the two open ends are showing. The suits change; the habit doesn't.
- The draw read. Every time they go to the boneyard, say the two ends out loud in your head: "no sixes, no twos." Then lead into them.
- The endgame call. The moment the boneyard empties, stop and name their hand before your next play. Check yourself when the hand ends. You'll be right more often than you expect within a week.
At the table, the counting happens in your head. Writing it down is a different kind of game and your Auntie will say so. In the app, the boneyard count is on screen and every played bone stays visible, so it's a good place to build the habit before you take it to the cookout.
What the Shark is doing
The hardest difficulty in Cookout Dominoes counts the way we've described, taken to its logical end. Before every play, the Shark works out which bones are unaccounted for, exactly the list you'd have if you'd counted perfectly. Then it does what a person can't: it deals itself several different possible opponent hands from that list, plays the next few turns forward against each one, and picks the bone that does best across all of them. No peeking. It sees the same table you do. It just never forgets a six, and it never leaves an answer on the board that it's holding.
You don't need the search to beat it. You need the count. Every tip in Fives Dominoes Strategy: 12 Tips That Actually Win Hands gets sharper once you know what's out, and the numbers behind the opening plays, from more than 100,000 simulated hands, are in The Best Opening Domino, by the Numbers.
Questions people ask
How many of each number are in a set of dominoes?
Seven bones carry each number in a double-six set: the double plus one bone pairing it with each of the other six numbers. Seven sixes, seven fives, down to seven blanks. 28 bones in all, 168 pips, and a seven-bone hand averages 42 pips.
How do you know what dominoes your opponent has?
Subtraction. Every bone is on the board, in your hand, in theirs, or in the boneyard. Count by suit as bones hit the table, and fold in every draw: when they draw, nothing in their hand matched either open end at that moment. Once the boneyard is empty, 28 minus the board minus your hand is their hand exactly.
What is a dead suit in dominoes?
A number that can no longer be played because all seven bones carrying it are on the board or in your own hand. An open end showing a dead suit is a wall: your opponent can never play on it. Two dead ends is a blocked board.
Is counting dominoes cheating?
No. Every bone on the table is public, and remembering public information is the skill the game is built on. Counting is what separates the grown folks' table from everybody else. Writing it down at a real table is a different conversation.
Why did my opponent draw when they had dominoes left?
Because none of their bones matched either open end. In Fives you must draw from the boneyard until you can play, and you can only pass once it's empty. Their draw tells you two whole suits were missing from their hand at that moment, which is the most useful free information in the game.
How many pips are in a set of dominoes?
168. Each number from 0 to 6 appears on eight halves (six single bones plus both halves of its double), and 8 times the sum of 0 through 6 is 168. That makes the average bone worth 6 pips and the average seven-bone hand worth 42.