Classic Domino Games for Family Night: Trains, Fives, and Blocking
Short answer: Mexican Train and Chickenfoot are not the same game wearing two names, and the difference is structural — one builds private trains out from a shared start, the other branches off doubles that must be completed before play moves on. Add All Fives, the third game the domino lists name, and a single domino set covers three genuinely different family nights. This guide takes the three in teaching order, states what the rules sources actually agree on, and flags the one place where they flatly disagree.
One set of dominoes, three different nights
Start with the set itself, because the sources are consistent here and the numbers check out. Mexican Train is typically played with a double-12 set of 91 dominoes. Chickenfoot is played with a double-9 set — 55 tiles — or, in another rules source, a double-9 or double-12 set. A double-12 set therefore covers all three games below, which is why it is the set to own: 91 tiles, and no game below is closed to you.
What the three games share is the finish. In both Mexican Train and Chickenfoot, the winner is the player with the lowest score — dominoes at family night is a game of escaping points, not collecting them. Everything else about the three differs, starting with what a turn feels like: building your own line, blocking a branch, or learning a third game from a single chosen rules sheet.
Mexican Train: the full rules that matter
The shape of the game, per the rules sources: each player has a private train of their own, and there is also a shared Mexican Train that anyone can play on. That split — your line, plus one communal line — is the game's whole personality. A player stuck on their own train is rarely stuck everywhere, and a round keeps moving because the shared train gives the table a second front.
The game runs through rounds down to an end the sources state plainly: it ends when the final round is played with the double-blank as the engine, and the lowest total points wins. Two variants are worth agreeing on before the first tile is drawn, because both change scores: whether a player may answer — play on — their own double, and whether a double-blank left in a hand at the end counts 25 points or 50. Neither has a single settled answer in the sources; both are house decisions. Write yours on the score sheet, once, and the argument never happens again.
Chickenfoot: the branching game
Chickenfoot is a blocking game for two or more players, played with a double-9 or double-12 set, with the same objective as Mexican Train: the lowest score at the end of the game. The layout is where it departs. Doubles are played vertically, and the next three plays branch off the double — that branched shape is the chickenfoot the game is named for.
One rule gives the game its tension: a chickenfoot must be completed, with all three of its branching tiles played, before other plays continue. The table's attention narrows to one unfinished shape, and blocking stops being an accident and becomes the plan.
Now the flagged disagreement. The retrieved rules sources do not agree on Chickenfoot starting hands: one treatment gives a starting hand of seven tiles, while another gives counts that vary by player count — as many as 20 tiles for two players, down to 6 for eight. No retrieved source acknowledges the contradiction. The practical fix is not to pick a winner but to pick a source: choose one rules sheet for your table, state the starting hand out loud before dealing, and keep that sheet with the set. House-rule variance is normal in dominoes; unannounced variance is what starts arguments.
All Fives: the game the lists name but do not teach
All Fives — the Muggins family of games — is the third night, and the honest section of the evening, because the retrieved sources name it more than they teach it. The domino game lists identify Muggins as typically played with a double-six set, and then move on; no retrieved result gives a complete, family-ready statement of Fives rules. Rather than fill that gap with a confident-sounding summary stitched together from memory, here is what can be verified and what to do about the rest.
Verified: the game's identity (All Fives, in the Muggins family) and its usual set — double-six, smaller than the double-12 the other two games use, so a double-12 set still covers it.
Not verified from the retrieved sources: a complete statement of its rules your family could play from without a second source.
So treat All Fives as a two-step adoption. First, pick one published rules source as the table's authority and read its rules aloud before the first tile — its rules are the game, so a rules dispute is a game dispute. Second, play the first round as a rehearsal, checking every play against the chosen source as it happens. By round two the arithmetic is habit. A family that skips step one will spend the night relitigating; a family that does it gets a third, genuinely different night from the same set.
Train or Chickenfoot? The honest difference table
| Mexican Train | Chickenfoot | |
|---|---|---|
| Set | Double-12, 91 tiles | Double-9 (55 tiles) or double-12 |
| Layout | A private train per player, plus the shared Mexican Train | One branching layout built off doubles |
| Doubles | Played as part of a train line | Played vertically; the next three plays branch off the double |
| Defining rule | Rounds run down to the double-blank engine round | A chickenfoot must be completed before other plays continue |
| Feel of a turn | Build your line; the shared train is the escape valve | Blocking: finish the branch, or leave it awkward for the next player |
| Winner | Lowest total points | Lowest score |
The People Also Ask version of this — is Mexican Train the same as Chickenfoot? — now has its answer: same family, same lowest-score finish, different skeleton. If your table remembers one line, make it the doubles. Vertical doubles that branch are Chickenfoot; trains are Train.
Teaching order for a family learning all three
- Mexican Train first. The private train gives every player their own line to think about, the shared train rescues stuck turns, and the lowest-score finish teaches the family's scoring habit in the most forgiving of the three shapes.
- Chickenfoot second. It adds one idea — the branch that must be completed before play continues — on top of the domino basics the table already has. Agree the starting-hand count out loud before the first deal, per the source disagreement flagged above.
- All Fives last. Not because it is hardest to understand, but because it is the one the sources teach least completely: adopt it with a chosen rules source at the table and a rehearsal round, once the family is fluent enough in dominoes to follow a rules sheet as the round goes.
What success looks like: three weekends, three different games, one set of dominoes — and a score sheet that already carries the house decisions (the double-blank's penalty value, the Chickenfoot starting hand) so nobody has to win the same argument twice.
— Rex Bennett, Entertainment Writer