Opening Moves and Sorting Your Hand

The first turn of a round is the one you have the most information about and the least pressure on. Your hand is as big as it will ever be, nobody has committed to anything, and you can afford a minute to look at what you were dealt. Here is what to look for, and what to do with it.

Sort your hand before you play anything

This is the step most players skip, and it is worth more than any single clever move. Drag your dominoes into an order that means something to you, then use the divider to split them into two groups. Both are yours alone — nobody else sees your hand, and rearranging it costs you nothing and no time.

Two arrangements do most of the work:

• By the engine number. In a 12-12 round, gather every domino with a 12 on it at one end of your hand. That is your opening material, and how many you have tells you straight away whether this round is going to be comfortable.
• Heavy on one side. Put the big tiles — the 12-11, the 11-9, the doubles — together, so you can see at a glance what will hurt if you are still holding it when someone goes out.

The divider is there so you can keep those two groups apart on screen. Most players end up with “tiles I can actually play” on one side and “tiles I need to get rid of” on the other, and the second group is the one that decides your score.

You play one domino, not a run

Worth being clear about, because a lot of Mexican Train advice written elsewhere assumes otherwise. In some house versions your first turn is a whole chain of dominoes laid at once, and the advice that follows is all about finding your longest run.

Here, a turn is one domino — the first turn included. That changes the opening question completely. You are not asking “what is my longest chain?” You are asking “which single domino do I most want gone, out of the ones that can go?”

Open with the heaviest thing that fits

Your first domino has to match the engine, so in a 12-12 round it needs a 12 on it. If you hold the 12-11, the 12-9 and the 12-2, play the 12-11. It is worth twenty-three points against you and it will never be easier to place than right now, while the only number on the board is the one it is built around.

The instinct to hold heavy tiles back for a better moment is the single most expensive habit in this game. The better moment usually does not arrive: the board narrows as it fills up, and the tile that was playable on turn one is stranded by turn ten.

The exception is a double. If your only engine-matching domino is the 12-12 — or the double of the engine number in a later round — think about what happens next, which is the subject of when to play your doubles.

Count your outs before you commit

Once you play your opening domino, the far end of your train becomes the number you have to match next time. Look at what you would be left needing.

If you play the 12-11, your train ends in 11, and you want another 11 in hand. If you hold three of them, you have a comfortable route. If you hold none, you have just built a train you cannot extend, and your next turn is a draw. Opening with the 12-9 instead, when you hold two other 9s, is often worth the four points of difference.

This is the one place where playing slightly lighter is right: not to protect the heavy tile, but because a train you can follow up on is worth more than four points.

Should you start the Mexican Train?

Anyone can start the Mexican Train with a domino matching the engine, and once it exists anyone can play on it at any time. On your first turn you can start it instead of your own train.

It cuts both ways:

• For. It sheds a domino without committing your own train to a number, and it gives everyone — you included — a permanent second place to play. A round with no Mexican Train gets stuck much faster.
• Against. The number it ends on is available to every player at the table, so a train you started to help yourself often helps the person after you more.

The straightforward rule: start it when you hold several of the number it would end on. Then you are opening a lane you can drive down repeatedly, and the fact that everyone else can use it too matters less than the fact that you can. There is more on this in playing on the Mexican Train.

What a bad opening hand actually looks like

Not “no high tiles” — a hand with no engine-matching domino at all. You will draw automatically until you find one, so you are never stuck, but every drawn tile is another one in your hand when someone goes out.

When that happens, change what you are playing for. You are probably not going out this round; you are trying to finish it holding as little as possible. That means shedding heavy tiles at every opportunity, even into positions that do nothing for your own train, and it means taking the Mexican Train or an open train whenever it will take something big off your hands.

Scoring nothing and going out are two different goals, and the second one is not always available. The first one nearly always is — see how to win at Mexican Train for why that distinction matters more than anything else on this page.

Keep reading

• How to win at Mexican Train
• When to play your doubles
• Playing on the Mexican Train
• Setting up a round