Dominoes (also known as bones, cards, men, or pieces) are a set of flat, rectangular tiles that are usually twice as long as they are wide. Each domino has a square of dots, called pips, on either side of the domino, and these pips indicate its value. A domino with more pips is “heavier” or has a higher rank than a domino with fewer pips. When a domino is played, it begins a chain reaction in which the tiles push on each other until they all fall over. This is a simple, but elegant, demonstration of the law of gravity.

Hevesh, a 24-year-old who lives in the UK, is a professional domino artist, and she has created spectacular domino arrangements for movies, TV shows, and events, including an album launch for Katy Perry. Some of her largest setups take several nail-biting minutes to topple, but once the first domino falls, all of the energy that was stored in it becomes available to push on other dominoes and make them tumble. Hevesh calls this phenomenon the domino effect.

In most domino games, a player must play a tile so that it touches only one end of a line of already-played dominoes. The rest of the chain is then formed by other tiles played in turn, and the number on each domino must be added up to determine the total score for the game. A special case is the “spinner” domino, which can be played on all four sides, allowing it to act as two doubles when needed.

After the tiles have been shuffled, each player draws a domino from the stock and makes the first play of that tile. The rules of some games specify that the first play must be made by the player with the heaviest tile in his hand, while others require that a specific double or single be played as the lead.

Some games also allow players to buy additional dominoes from the stock, adding them to the existing lines of play. The number of pips on the purchased dominoes is added to the winner’s score, and some games have specific rules regarding which types of dominoes can be bought.

Some players prefer to use a special set of dominoes, which have a different layout than the standard ones that come with most sets. These dominoes are usually printed with more readable Arabic numerals, which can help the players keep track of the numbers on each end of the chains. Increasing the size of the dominoes in this way allows for a larger variety of possible combinations and increases the scoring potential of the game. However, most players choose to use the standard set of dominoes for most of their games.