Rules

Chickenfoot dominoes rules.

Chickenfoot is a domino game played with a double-9 set. The tiles branch out from one central double, and the layout grows feet as it spreads across the table. Scoring has the same shape as Mexican Train: the pips left in your hand at the end of a round are your points, and the lowest total wins. Chickenfoot mode is free in the score keeper.

What you need

One double-9 set, 55 tiles. Chickenfoot plays with 2 to 8 players. Shuffle the tiles face down, and each player draws a hand: a common deal is 7 tiles each for most table sizes, with the rest left face down as the draw pile. Tables vary the deal a little; settle on a number before the first round and keep it all game.

The layout, and how a foot forms

Every round starts with a double in the center of the table. The first round starts with the double-9. Tiles are played by matching numbers, as in most domino games: the open end shows a number, and your tile must carry that number on one end.

The first tiles played on the central double build four arms out from it. When a double is played into the layout, it goes down crosswise, across the line of play, and it opens two new branches, one off each end of the double. As more doubles land crosswise and get played on, the layout keeps branching. A branch with a crosswise double at its end, still waiting to be played on, looks like a little foot with toes. That shape is where the game gets its name.

Playing crosswise doubles

Doubles are always played crosswise in Chickenfoot. A crosswise double has two open ends, and play cannot continue past it on that branch until both ends have been played on. While a double is open, the next plays on that branch must go onto the double. If you are the player facing an open double and you hold a tile that matches either end, you play there. If you do not, you draw from the pile. If the draw does not play either, you pass, and the turn moves on with the double still waiting.

Satisfying and closing a double

When both branches of a crosswise double have been played on, the double is satisfied and closed. Players call that a completed chickenfoot. A closed double stops blocking: the two tiles played on it each carry the game outward, and each of those lines is now a normal open end to build on, until the next double lands crosswise and opens a new foot to close.

Closing feet is the rhythm of the game. An open double is a problem the whole table shares, because nobody can sneak past it. Watching which doubles are still open, and holding a tile that can close one, is most of Chickenfoot strategy.

The rounds

Rounds start from descending doubles, the same as Mexican Train. The first round opens with the double-9. The next round opens with the double-8, then the double-7, and so on down through the double blank. A double-9 game runs 10 rounds in full. The player holding the round's starting double places it in the center. If nobody holds it, players draw in turn until it turns up.

A round ends when one player plays their last tile, or when the layout blocks and no player can play on any open end after drawing. Then hands are scored.

Scoring

Scoring is the same shape as Mexican Train. When a round ends, count the pips on every tile left in your hand. That count is your score for the round. The player who went out scores zero. Add the rounds together, and after the last round the lowest total wins the game. The double blank is worth 0 pips, as in Mexican Train. The full scoring walkthrough, with a worked example, is on the scoring page.

How Chickenfoot differs from Mexican Train

The first difference is the table itself. Mexican Train gives every player a private line of tiles to defend, plus one shared train, and the marker decides whose line is open to attack. Chickenfoot has one shared layout that belongs to everybody. There are no private trains and no markers. Every tile anyone plays changes the same picture, and an open double blocks the whole table, not just one player's line.

The second difference is what a round feels like. Mexican Train rounds are races to empty a hand down a line, with drawing as the penalty for a bad turn. Chickenfoot rounds are about the feet: doubles keep splitting the layout into new branches, hands empty by finding the right open end at the right moment, and a round often ends blocked, with several feet still unclosed. The two games share a set, a score sheet, and most of a club. Plenty of weekly groups play one on Tuesdays and the other on Fridays.

New to both? The Mexican Train rules page is the fuller read, and the scoring works the same in both games.