At the beginning of a game, the hands are dealt by randomly shuffling all
tiles face down on the table and letting each player choose seven (7) tiles.
When playing with four people, there will be no dominoes left over after the deal.
If playing with fewer people, the remaining dominoes are placed in the
boneyard
to be drawn from by a player when he cannot play a tile from his hand.
If this is the first game of a match, the player with
double six
must play that domino first. If fewer than four are playing and no one has the double six, the
call goes out for
double
five, then double four, and so on until one of the players can
produce the called for tile. Play then proceeds clockwise from the lead player, so that
the person to the leader's left plays second.
In subsequent games, the winner of the previous game becomes the leader of the next game.
When leading for a game other than the first game of the match, the choice of play
may be any tile in the lead player's hand.
