Chicken Foot Dominoes Rules

Chicken Foot is a dominoes game for two or more players, best with four to eight. Play starts from a double in the middle of the table and spreads out in every direction, and whenever someone plays a double, the next three tiles must branch off it like the toes of a chicken’s foot. Each round, the aim is to empty your hand; the pips left in everyone else’s hand are their score, and after the last round the lowest total wins. It is also called Chickenfoot, Chickie Dominoes and Chicken Dominoes. House rules vary, so this guide gives the most common Chicken Foot dominoes rules and the main variations.

Chicken Foot Rules at a Glance

What You Need

A double-nine set is standard: every pair of numbers from 0 to 9, doubles included, which makes 55 tiles carrying 495 pips. Each number appears on ten tiles. With a large group, a double-twelve set (91 tiles) or a double-fifteen or double-eighteen set gives everyone enough tiles, and two or three players can make do with an ordinary double-six set. You also need pencil and paper for the score.

The number of tiles each player draws depends on the set and the number of players. This is the table published by the domino maker Puremco:

Many groups start with fewer tiles, for example seven each, and some sets come with their own chart.

How to Set Up

1. Shuffle. Turn all the dominoes face down and mix them.
2. Draw your hand. Each player draws their tiles and stands them on edge so the others can’t see the faces.
3. Make the chicken yard. The tiles left over stay face down. This draw pile is called the chicken yard, and the layout on the table is sometimes called the barnyard.
4. Find the starting double. Round 1 starts with the highest double, the 9-9 in a double-nine set. The player who holds it places it in the middle and starts the round. If nobody has it, players draw one tile each from the chicken yard until it turns up. Some groups take the starting double out and put it in the middle before the tiles are drawn.

How to Play Chicken Foot

1. Fill the four sides of the starting double. Play goes clockwise. Each player in turn must play a tile with a matching number, a 9 in round 1, against one of the four sides of the starting double. No other tile may be played until all four sides are filled.
2. Play on any open end. Once the starting double is surrounded, each player plays one tile per turn on any open end of the layout, matching the number on that end. A 9-4 leaves a 4 open, so the next tile there must have a 4.
3. Draw if you can’t play. If you have no tile that fits, draw one from the chicken yard. Play it straight away if it fits; if not, your turn passes. When the chicken yard is empty, a player who can’t play simply passes.
4. Call your last tile. Saying that you have one tile left is a courtesy in the standard rules, and compulsory in some groups (see the variations).

The Chicken Foot: Playing Doubles

Any double you play goes crosswise across the end of the line, and you announce it: for a 4-4, “Chickie fours!”. From that moment, the next three tiles played by anyone must go on the far side of the double, each with a 4 against it. They are angled away from each other so the double and its three branches look like a chicken’s foot; the three branches are the toes.

Until the foot is complete, nothing can be played anywhere else on the table. A player with no matching tile draws one from the chicken yard, plays it on the foot if it fits, and otherwise passes. Once the third toe is down, play opens up again on every open end, including the three new toes. The starting double works the same way, except that it needs four tiles, one on each side.

Ending a Round and Scoring

A round ends when one player plays their last tile, or when the chicken yard is empty and nobody can play. That can happen when someone plays a double late in the round and not enough tiles with its number are left to finish the foot. Each player then adds up the pips on the tiles left in their hand, and that is their score for the round. A player who went out scores 0. The 0-0 is the exception: in the usual rules, getting stuck with it costs 50 points.

The next round starts from the next double down, the 8-8, then the 7-7, and so on. With a double-nine set, the tenth and last round starts from the 0-0. After the last round, the player with the lowest total wins. If two players tie, the one with more rounds at 0 wins.

Chicken Foot Variations

Chicken Foot vs Mexican Train

Both games belong to the same family of domino games, and both start each round from a central double that drops by one every round. The difference is in how the table grows:

For the full rules of the other game, see Mexican Train dominoes.

Chicken Foot Strategy Tips

• Play a double when someone is down to one tile. Nobody can play anywhere else until the foot is finished, so a player with one tile left often has to draw.
• Get rid of the 0-0 early. At 50 points, it is the most expensive tile to be caught with.
• Keep a tile for the doubles still to come. If a double in a number you hold hasn’t been played yet, keeping one tile with that number means you can play on its foot.
• Shed heavy tiles first. A 9-8 left in your hand costs 17 points; a 1-0 costs 1.
• Count the numbers. Each number appears on ten tiles. Once most of them are on the table, a double in that number may never get its three toes.

Chicken Foot Odds

With four players and a double-nine set, the 9-9 in the middle and 11 tiles each, these are the exact chances for your opening hand in round 1:

• You hold at least one 9: 89%, so you can play on the starting double on your first turn.
• All four players hold a 9: 61%. The rest of the time, at least one player has to draw before the four sides are filled.
• You are dealt the 0-0: 1 hand in 5.
• Doubles in your hand: none 11%, one 30%, two 33%, three or more 26%.
• Average hand: 97 pips, the score you would take if you never played a tile.

Where Chicken Foot Comes From

Chicken Foot is a version of the older domino game Maltese Cross and seems to have started in Texas or Mexico. Jennifer A. Kelley’s Great Book of Domino Games (1999) credits Louis and Betty Howsley with inventing it in 1986. It belongs to the same family of domino games as Mexican Train.

More Domino Games

Chicken Foot is one of many games you can play with a set of dominoes. The dominoes rules guide covers the basic block and draw games and how scoring works, and Mexican Train is the other favourite for a big group.

Chicken Foot: frequently asked questions