How Scoring Works in Mexican Train

Scoring in Mexican Train catches people out because it runs backwards from most games: you are trying to score as few points as possible, and the winner of a round scores nothing at all. Here is exactly how it works, with a full example across three rounds.

The one-sentence version

When somebody goes out, everyone else adds up the dots on the dominoes still in their hand, and that number is their score for the round. Round scores accumulate. After the last round, the lowest total wins.

Counting the dots

Every domino is worth the total of its two halves. The dots are called pips, which is the word you will see in most rulebooks.

Domino	Pips	Worth
12-12	12 + 12	24 points
12-9	12 + 9	21 points
8-3	8 + 3	11 points
6-0	6 + 0	6 points
0-0	0 + 0	0 points, or a penalty — see below

There is nothing clever here. A hand of 12-12, 8-3 and 6-0 is 24 + 11 + 6, so 41 points. It is worth noticing how lopsided that is: one high double is worth as much as four or five small dominoes. Getting rid of the heavy tiles early is most of the game.

A worked example

Three players — Ann, Ben and Cass — playing a short three-round game. Nobody has changed the default settings.

Round one (the 12-12 engine)

Ann goes out. Ben is left holding 9-4 and 3-1. Cass is left holding 12-6, 5-5 and 2-0.

Player	Tiles left	Round score	Running total
Ann	none — went out	0	0
Ben	9-4, 3-1	13 + 4 = 17	17
Cass	12-6, 5-5, 2-0	18 + 10 + 2 = 30	30

Round two (the 11-11 engine)

Cass goes out this time. Ann is caught with 11-8. Ben is caught with 7-2 and 1-1.

Player	Tiles left	Round score	Running total
Ann	11-8	19	19
Ben	7-2, 1-1	9 + 2 = 11	28
Cass	none — went out	0	30

Round three (the 10-10 engine)

The boneyard empties and nobody can play, so the round ends blocked. Everybody counts what is left — including the player who would otherwise have gone out next turn.

Player	Tiles left	Round score	Final total
Ann	4-2	6	25
Ben	10-10	20	48
Cass	6-3, 1-0	9 + 1 = 10	40

Ann wins with 25. Notice that Ann only went out once, in the first round — she won because she was never caught holding anything heavy, not because she emptied her hand most often. That is the whole strategy of the game in one table.

When a round ends

A round ends one of two ways. Either somebody plays their last domino and goes out, or the game blocks: the boneyard is empty and nobody has a legal move. A blocked round still scores exactly the same way — everyone counts what is in their hand.

The double blank

The 0-0 domino is worth nothing by its pips, which strikes a lot of people as wrong for the hardest tile in the set to get rid of. Many families give it a flat penalty instead, commonly 50 points. It varies enough to deserve its own page.

How many rounds?

A full game runs from the 12-12 engine down to 0-0, which is thirteen rounds and a long afternoon. Shorter games start lower — beginning at the 6-6 gives you seven rounds, which is a comfortable evening. The scoring is unchanged either way.

The online game counts for you

Playing at mexicantrain.online, none of this is your job. Pips are counted the moment a round ends, running totals are kept round by round, and the standings are always a click away. Nobody has to find a pen, and nobody has to trust anybody else’s arithmetic at eleven at night.

Keep reading

• How to play Mexican Train — the whole game
• The double blank rule
• Setting up a round: tiles, hands and the engine
• How to win at Mexican Train