Three Caribbean Domino Styles

Across all three islands, the team game has the same core: four players in two fixed partnerships, partners seated across from each other, hands hidden, and the score kept by team.

Passes carry information and blocked hands get counted everywhere. What changes is the set, the target, and the words for special finishes: in Cuba, losing a game without scoring a point is a pollona.

Dominican domino uses the double-six set: 28 tiles, seven per player, nothing left over with four players. At many tables the double six, which some tables call el burro, opens the first hand. The linguist Roberto Guzmán writes in Acento that Dominicans count to 100; some tables play to 200.

With all 28 tiles dealt, every pass tells you something. Trancar, closing the game to count the tantos, is part of the scoring, and a capicúa often pays extra: 25 or 30, depending on the table.

The biggest visible difference: Cuban domino is most often played with the double-nine set, 55 tiles, according to Pagat. With four players each takes ten tiles and 15 stay out of the game. CubaNet writes that this way of playing took hold especially in the western provinces.

More numbers per end, zero through nine, means ten suits to track instead of seven. Pagat gives 100 as the target, and the Diccionario de americanismos marks pollona, losing a game without scoring a point, as a Cuban word.

Puerto Rican domino will feel familiar to a Dominican player: double-six set, 28 tiles, four players in pairs. The vocabulary changes first. The finish Dominicans call capicúa is capicú in Puerto Rico (Metro Puerto Rico).

Puerto Rican guides describe games to 200 ('Doscientos') and to 500 ('Quinientos'). In 500-point games a capicú pays 100, and so does a chuchazo, going out on the double blank (mesa28, Caribbean Trading, José Carrillo). The chuchazo is not a Dominican bonus.

Yes, if the group agrees on the dialect before dealing: which set, what target, which bonuses count, and what the blocked hand pays.

FichaFlow plays the Dominican style: double six, pairs, and the tranque 'con el de abajo', where the player who blocked compares his tiles with the player on his right, as published Dominican tournament rules put it (Santiago 2019, La Guáyiga 2025). Its table rules make those agreements explicit.

FichaFlow starts capicúa, pase de salida and pase redondo (o corrido) at 25. At the table they pay 25 or 30, depending on the table. Chuchazo is a Puerto Rican finish and pollona a Cuban word; both start at 0 in FichaFlow.