Guyanese dominoes explained — the rules, six love, and yard etiquette

In Guyana, dominoes is not a children’s game and it is not solitaire with tiles. It is a partnership game, played fast, played loud, and played to a scoring system that most published explanations get wrong.

If you are visiting, or you have been invited to a table and would rather not embarrass yourself, this is what you need.

The equipment

A double-six set: 28 tiles, covering every combination of spot counts from zero to six. In the Caribbean they are called bones.

That is it. No board, no dice. A table you can slam.

The game people actually play

The dominant Caribbean form is the partner game. Four players, sitting around a square table, in two partnerships — your partner is the person directly opposite you. Everyone takes seven bones. Play goes anti-clockwise.

The other form is cut throat, in which every player is for themselves. With three players each takes nine bones and the double-blank is removed; with two, each takes fourteen.

If someone at a table in Guyana says “dominoes” without qualifying it, they mean the four-handed partner game.

Starting: the pose

The first hand is opened by whoever holds the double six. Playing that first bone is called posing.

In tournament play the opening player must pose the double six. In informal play there is more latitude — in some Caribbean traditions the holder may announce he is opening with something else — but the double six starting the game is the default you should assume.

After the opening hand, the winner of the previous hand poses the next one.

Playing

You match a number on one end of your bone to a number on one open end of the layout, and place it. If you cannot play, you pass — and everyone at the table now knows something about what you are not holding. That inference is most of the skill in the game.

The hand ends when someone plays their last bone, or when nobody can play at all.

Scoring — and what “six love” really means

This is the part that is almost always explained incorrectly, so read it twice.

One point per hand won. Caribbean dominoes counts hands, not pips. You do not add up spots at the end of a hand to see who won by how much.

The target is six. But not first-to-six.

The aim is to win six while your opponents win none — 6–0. That is six love. And here is the rule that makes it hard: if the other side wins a single hand, the score goes back to 0–0. Both sides start again, and the holder of the double six begins the next hand.

So six love is not “we got to six first.” It is six consecutive hands with the other side taking none. It is a whitewash, it is genuinely difficult, and that is exactly why it is the thing people talk about for weeks afterwards. To be given six love is a humiliation with a name.

The same principle applies in cut throat: a player reaching six wins outright provided another player is still on zero. If everybody has won a hand before anyone reaches six, the score resets to zero all round.

The key bone — the extra point

There is one bonus worth knowing.

If both ends of the layout are “hard ends” showing different numbers, such that only one bone in the entire set can legally be played, that bone is the key. A player who wins the hand by playing the key as their last bone scores two points instead of one.

One exception: a final double that happens to be the only playable tile does not count as a key.

When the game blocks

If nobody can play, the hand is blocked. It is won by the side whose remaining bones carry the fewest spots — and, importantly in the partner game, it is decided on the hand of the player who is counted, not on the partnership total in the way you might expect. Agree the house convention before you start; this is the one rule where tables genuinely differ.

Yard etiquette

The rules are half of it. The other half is how you behave, and this is where a visitor gives themselves away.

Slam the tile. This is not rudeness. The style of Caribbean play is boisterous, and the bones are brought down on the table rather than set down gently. Playing quietly reads as timid.

Do not talk to your partner. Not a word about the game, not a look, not a gesture. Passing information to your partner by speech or signal is cheating, and it is taken seriously. Your partner works out what you hold from what you play and what you pass on. That is the whole art.

Watch the passes. Everyone at the table is counting. When your partner passes on fives, you know not to leave a five open. When an opponent passes on fives, you know exactly what to do.

Do not play slowly. The rhythm matters. A table that has to wait for you will let you know.

**Do not talk about the hand while it is running**, even innocently. “Boy, I can’t play nothing” is information.

Sit and finish. You do not leave a game part-way through. Common tournament formats — you will see them advertised as “six-game, two-in-one-out” — assume you are staying.

And “double-six time” means start time. If a notice says double-six time is 15:00, the game begins at three.

The competitive game

Dominoes in Guyana is organised, funded and internationally competitive — this is not just a yard pastime.

The Guyana National Dominoes Federation is the recognised domestic body, and tournaments are commonly advertised as being played under GNDF rules. In 2025 it received government support of G$5.9 million through the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport to send 28 players and two officials to the 20th World Championships in Antigua and Barbuda.

The international body is the World Council of Domino Federations, inaugurated in Barbados in July 1993, with championships held every two years since 2000.

Guyana has hosted twice in recent years. The 18th World Championships were played at the Carifesta Sports Complex in Georgetown from October 2018. The 19th were played at the Guyana National Stadium at Providence from 12 to 21 August 2023, with more than 150 participants — Antigua took the overall title, Barbados second, Guyana third, with Guyana’s men winning the Three-hand title.

The disciplines are Four-Hand Team, Three-Hand Male and Female Team, Male Pairs, Mixed Pairs, and the individual King of Domino and Queen of Domino titles.

Domestically the calendar is busy: nationwide tournaments have drawn over a hundred teams from all ten regions, with prize funds in the millions of Guyana dollars.

Two things not to say

A pair of small honesty notes, since this is a guide and not a folk tale.

Some people will tell you “six love” comes from tennis scoring. It is plausible and it is repeated everywhere, but there is no citable source for it. Enjoy the theory; do not present it as fact.

Others will tell you the slam is a coded signal to your partner. It is not — or at least, nothing documents it as one, and since signalling your partner is against the rules, it had better not be. The slam is emphasis, not semaphore.

If you are invited to play

Say yes. Take the seat you are given. Take seven bones. Slam them down when you play them. Say nothing to your partner. Count the passes.

And if you get given six love on your first evening — which you will — take it well. That is the etiquette that matters most.