At the beginning of a new match, the first player is determined randomly by shuffling all
tiles face down on the table and letting each player choose one. The one who draws the
highest tile gets to go first. The score for a tile is determined by adding the total points
on both ends of each tile. If two players have drawn tiles with the same total, the higher
tile is determined to be the one with the most pips on a single end.
The tiles are again placed face down, reshuffled, and each player draws seven (7) tiles.
The player that was determined by the draw gets to play first. In subsequent games, the
lead player is rotated in a counter-clockwise fashion. In other words, the second game's
leadoff player is the person sitting to the right of the first game's leadoff person, and
so on to allow each person a chance to lead.
If there are four players, each will have seven tiles and there will be none left over.
If there are three or two players, each will have seven tiles but there will be additional
tiles that are not held by the players. These tiles are placed in the
boneyard
to be drawn from by a player when he cannot play a tile from his hand.
