Mexican Train dominoes rules: how to play, step by step

Guides · Updated 1 October 2026

Mexican Train is the dominoes game you play when there are too many people for Block or Draw. It seats up to eight, nobody is ever knocked out of a round, and the rules for Mexican Train dominoes fit on a single card once you have seen them played once. The trouble is that almost everyone learns them from someone who learned them from someone else, and house rules pile up.

This guide gives the standard game first, then the variations you will meet, so you can agree on them before the first tile goes down rather than halfway through round six.

How do you play Mexican Train dominoes?

Place the double-twelve in the centre as the engine. Deal 15 tiles each to two to four players. On your turn, add one matching tile to your own train, the shared Mexican Train, or any train with a marker. If you cannot play, draw once, then pass and mark your train. Lowest total after thirteen rounds wins.

What you need

• A double-twelve set. That is 91 tiles, with numbers running from blank to twelve. A standard double-six set is far too small. The guide to how many dominoes are in a set explains why the bigger sets exist at all.
• A hub, if you have one. Many sets come with a plastic station that has a slot for the engine and spokes pointing to each player. It keeps the trains tidy but is not required.
• A marker for each player. Commercial sets use small plastic trains. Coins work just as well.
• Pen and paper for a running score across thirteen rounds.

How many dominoes does each player get?

The engine is removed before the deal, which leaves 90 tiles to share. The most commonly printed table is:

Look at the last column before choosing. Eight players leave only ten tiles in the boneyard, so a round with a big table runs out of draws quickly and blocks more often. Two players leave sixty, which makes for long rounds with a lot of drawing.

Step by step

1. Set up the station

Take the double-twelve out of the set and put it in the centre of the table. This tile is the engine, and every train in the round grows out of it. Round two uses the double-eleven, round three the double-ten, and so on down to the double-blank in round thirteen. Each round, find that round’s double and set it out before shuffling, so it is never dealt to anyone.

2. Deal

Shuffle the remaining tiles face down, sometimes called washing, and deal by the table above. Stand your tiles on edge so nobody else can read them.

3. Plan your train before anyone plays

Experienced players do this and new players never do. Before the first turn, arrange your hand into the longest chain you can build starting from the engine’s number. If the engine is the double-twelve, find a tile with a twelve on it, then a tile that matches its other end, and keep going. Whatever doesn’t fit the chain is what you will need to dump elsewhere.

4. Start your own train

On your turn, play a tile that matches the engine, laid pointing towards your seat. That line of tiles is your private train, and while it has no marker on it, only you may add to it.

5. Play one tile a turn

You have three places you can put a tile:

• on the end of your own train;
• on the Mexican Train, the shared train that belongs to everyone;
• on another player’s train, but only if it has a marker on it.

The Mexican Train does not exist until someone starts it, by playing a tile matching the engine in its own line. After that, anyone may add to it on any turn.

6. When you can’t play, draw once

Draw a single tile from the boneyard. If it fits somewhere, play it. If it doesn’t, pass, and put your marker on the end of your own train. The marker tells everyone that your train is now public: any player may add to it. You take the marker off the next time you play on your own train.

This is the rule people most often get wrong, because it differs from Draw dominoes. In Draw you keep taking tiles until one fits. In Mexican Train you take one, and if it doesn’t fit, your turn is over.

7. Satisfy every double

Playing a double is a commitment. When you put down a double, you must immediately play another tile on it, which is called satisfying or covering the double. If you can’t, draw one tile as usual. If that doesn’t help either, pass and put your marker out.

Now the double stays open, and it becomes everyone’s problem. The next player must cover it before playing anywhere else, and if they can’t, they draw, pass and mark their own train too. It carries on round the table until someone covers it. A single awkward double can leave four or five trains marked and open at once.

Many tables allow you to play a double and then keep going with another double, as long as you finish your turn on a tile that isn’t one. Settle this before you start.

8. End the round

The round is over when one player plays their last tile, or when nobody can play and the boneyard is empty.

9. Score it

The player who went out scores zero. Everyone else adds up every pip on the tiles still in their hand and records that total. Lower is better: this is a golf-style game, and after all thirteen rounds the lowest running total wins.

Blanks count as zero in the standard game. A common house rule makes the double-blank worth 50 points, which turns the least valuable tile in the set into the most dangerous one to be caught holding.

Common mistakes

• Playing elsewhere while a double is open. Until it is covered, nothing else on the table is legal for anyone.
• Drawing until something fits. One draw, then pass. Players who come from Draw dominoes do this constantly.
• Forgetting the marker. If you pass and don’t mark your train, you have quietly denied everyone a place to play. If you play on your own train and forget to lift it, you have invited them onto it for no reason.
• Starting your train on the wrong number. Every train in a round, the Mexican Train included, must begin with that round’s engine number.

Tips that actually help

Keep your train private for as long as you can. A marked train is an invitation, and opponents will happily dump their awkward tiles on it, which blocks the chain you planned.

Use the Mexican Train as your outlet. When you hold a tile that doesn’t fit your own chain, getting it onto the shared train costs you nothing and keeps your plan intact.

Watch the high tiles. Scoring counts pips, so a hand of twelves caught at the end of a round is expensive. When two plays are otherwise equal, shed the heavier tile. The same principle runs through every domino game, and our strategy guide explains why it matters so much.

Can you play Mexican Train with a double-six set?

You can, and some published rules cover it, but it is a much thinner game. A double-six set has 28 tiles against 91, so there are far fewer tiles to go round and only seven rounds instead of thirteen. For two players it works as a quick introduction. For anything bigger, get a double-twelve.

Where to play

Mexican Train isn’t available to play on this site yet. The two games it grew from are: Block and Draw, against a computer opponent, with a coach that explains its reasoning. They are the fastest way to build the counting habit that Mexican Train rewards. For how it compares with Chicken Foot and the rest, see the guide to types of domino games.