Domino bonuses
What Is a Chuchazo in Domino? Winning With La Chucha
La chucha is the double blank, the tile with zero pips. Win the hand by playing it and many Dominican tables pay a bonus. That finish is a chuchazo.
4 min read
Published July 25, 2026
Direct answer
What is a chuchazo?
A chuchazo is winning a hand by playing the double blank — la chucha, the 0-0 tile. Because the tile is so hard to place and worth nothing in pips, most Dominican tables pay a bonus for closing with it.
What to remember
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La chucha is the double blank, the 0-0 tile.
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A chuchazo is winning the hand by playing it.
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It carries zero pips, so it is harmless to hold but hard to place.
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Most tables pay a bonus for the finish, and the amount is a house rule.
In this guide
The 0-0 is the least valuable tile in the box. It answers almost nothing, it scores nothing if you get caught with it, and closing a hand with it is one of the most satisfying things you can do at a Dominican table.
01.
La chucha and the chuchazo
La chucha is the double blank: the 0-0, the only tile in the set with no pips at all. Playing it requires an open end showing blank, which is the rarest thing on the board, so the tile tends to sit in your hand a long time.
A chuchazo is winning the hand by playing exactly that tile. It is the underdog finish — the weakest tile in the box closing out the hand — and that is precisely why tables celebrate it.
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La chucha is the 0-0 double, worth zero pips.
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A chuchazo is closing the hand with it.
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It needs a blank open end, which makes it hard to place on purpose.
02.
Why a worthless tile earns a bonus
There is a neat irony in the chuchazo. La chucha costs you nothing if the hand is blocked and you are still holding it — zero pips means zero points against you. That makes it the safest tile to be stuck with and one of the hardest to actually use.
The bonus rewards the difficulty rather than the value. Ending a hand on the one tile nobody can help you place takes either patience or a very deliberate setup, and most Dominican tables think that deserves paying for.
03.
Playing toward a chuchazo
You cannot really force a chuchazo, but you can leave the door open. Holding a blank alongside la chucha gives you a way to create the open end you need instead of waiting for someone else to hand it to you.
The risk is the ordinary one: a tile you are protecting is a tile you are not playing. Nursing la chucha through a hand you could have won cleanly is a bad trade, and the bonus is rarely worth losing the hand over.
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Keep a blank if you want a route to placing la chucha yourself.
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Do not hold the hand hostage chasing the bonus.
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It is a finish worth taking when it appears, not a plan to build around.
04.
Scoring it in FichaFlow
FichaFlow detects a chuchazo on its own: when the winning tile is the double blank, the bonus is applied using the value your table set at the start.
As with every bonus, the amount is yours to choose. Agree on it before the first hand and the app keeps it consistent for the rest of the night.
Frequently asked questions
What is la chucha in dominoes?
La chucha is the double blank, the 0-0 tile. It has no pips, which makes it harmless to be caught with and genuinely difficult to play, since it needs an open end showing blank.
How many points is a chuchazo worth?
It varies by table. Many Dominican tables pay the same as their other bonuses, and FichaFlow defaults to a standard bonus value you can change. Agree on it before the first hand.
Is it bad to be left holding la chucha?
Not at all — it is the best tile to be caught with, because zero pips means it adds nothing to the other side's score in a blocked hand. The difficulty is placing it, not holding it.
Sources & fact-checking
The factual claims in this guide were checked against the references below.
- Dominoes in the Dominican Republic
DR1 · Accessed July 25, 2026
Overview of Dominican table play and the bonus plays commonly agreed before a game starts.