Welcome to the Dutch Drawing Game!

Let’s Learn About the Dutch Drawing Game

Have you heard of the Dutch Drawing Game? It’s an exciting domino game that you can play with 2 to 4 players. The main objective of the game is to score enough points to win!

If you’re playing with four people, you can even form teams and play together. In a team, you and your partner will sit across from each other and take turns placing tiles on the train.

Setting Up the Game

Before we start playing, let’s go over the setup. First, the dominoes need to be shuffled. After that, each player will draw their hand. If you’re playing with 2 or 3 players, you’ll draw 7 tiles each. But if there are 4 players, each player will only draw 6 tiles.

There will also be some tiles left that form what we call the “boneyard.” However, keep in mind that the last two tiles in the boneyard cannot be drawn.

If you’re playing with teams, each player will still draw 7 tiles, but there won’t be a boneyard to draw from.

How to Play

We start by randomly selecting the first player. From there, we take turns in a clockwise order, placing tiles on either end of the train. Remember, the tile you play must match the side that connects to the end of the train.

When it’s your turn, you must play a tile. If you don’t have a playable tile in your hand, you need to draw from the boneyard. You can draw one or, in some variations, two tiles. If you still can’t play a tile on the train, then you pass your turn.

Once the draw pile has only two tiles left, no more tiles can be drawn. If you can’t play a tile on your turn at this point, you also have to pass.

Doubles are played in the center of the train, but they don’t branch it.

The game continues until a player plays their last domino or until no player can play a domino on the train.

SCORING

When the round is finished, I count how many pips I have left in my hand. The [0,0] tile is worth 13 pips. If I don’t have any dominos in my hand, then my pip value is 0.

The player with the fewest pips wins the round and gets the sum of all the other players’ pips minus their own. If there’s a tie, no one scores for that round.

The game goes on until someone reaches the target score. In a 2-player game, the target score is 100 points. For a 3 or 4-player game, the target score is 61 points.

END OF ROUND

When someone reaches the target score, the game ends and they are declared the winner.

I’m Amber (They/Them), and I’m an Austin-based writer and gaming enthusiast. I consider myself to be a gaming master, and I also love dogs, plants, and playing D&D.