Mexican Train Rules: How to Play, Setup, and Scoring

Mexican train rules are easy to state but take a round or two to get comfortable with: draw a hand of dominoes, build a personal train out from a shared hub, and add tiles to your own train, to the communal Mexican train, or to anyone’s train once it’s marked open. This page covers the standard double-12 game played across a full session of rounds, and calls out the handful of points - the first-turn allowance, satisfying a double, and a couple of scoring details - where published rule sets and common house variants disagree.

Mexican train rules: how to play Mexican train in a nutshell

This hub describes double-12 Mexican Train, the version most groups mean when they ask how to play Mexican train: a double at the center of the table as the hub, a personal train for each player, and one communal Mexican train that anyone can add to. Where a popular house rule - the one-tile-left tap/uno penalty, or a points value for the double-blank - isn’t part of every published rule set, that’s noted in the relevant section rather than presented as the only way to play.

Setup

Shuffle a double-12 set (91 tiles, every pairing of blank through 12, including each of the 13 doubles) face down and draw a hand: up to four players draw 15 tiles each, five or six players draw 12 each, and seven or eight players draw 10 each. Whatever’s left stays face down as the boneyard, within reach of everyone at the table.

Whoever holds the double-12 places it in the hub at the center of the table to open the first round. A later round in the same session is opened by the next double down - 11-11, then 10-10, and so on to the double-blank for the thirteenth and last round - so each player draws a fresh hand before every round rather than playing the whole session on one deal.

The diagram below shows the layout once a few turns have happened: the hub holding the starting double, four personal trains built out from it, one of them marked open because its owner couldn’t play, and the Mexican train running off on its own as a train anyone can add to.

How a turn works

Play goes clockwise, starting with whoever placed the hub double. On your very first turn of a round, you may lay down as many dominoes as you like to build out your own train, so long as each tile matches the one before it and the end nearest the hub matches the hub double - that’s the version this page describes, and it’s the one pagat.com and the original Puremco-descended rules both give. Some tables simplify this to one tile per turn for everyone from the start, which makes the opening turns slower but otherwise plays the same.

From your second turn on, you play exactly one tile per turn, onto your own train, onto the Mexican train if it’s been started, or onto another player’s train only while it’s marked open (see below). Playing a double is the one exception: it earns you an extra tile right away, which can go anywhere you’re allowed to play, not necessarily next to the double itself.

Any player may start the Mexican train from their second turn onward, by playing a tile that matches the hub at one end. Once started, it stays open to every player for the rest of the round - it’s never anyone’s personal property, and nobody can mark it closed.

If you can’t play on your own turn, draw one tile from the boneyard. Play it right away if it fits; otherwise your turn ends and a marker goes on your own train, showing the table that it’s now open for any player to add to. Play on your own marked train on a later turn and the marker comes off, making it private again.

An open double - one played with no second tile against it yet - has to be satisfied before any other play happens anywhere on the table. The duty falls on the very next player in turn: if they can cover the double from their hand, they must, even onto a train that wouldn’t normally be theirs to play on; if they can’t, they draw once, and failing that too, they pass and mark their own train, handing the obligation to the next player in line.

Many groups also play the tapping, or “uno,” rule: announce out loud or tap the table when you’re down to your last tile, before the next player finishes their turn, or draw two tiles as a penalty if someone catches you first. It’s a popular addition, not a rule every published source includes, so agree on it before you start if it matters to your group.

Scoring

At the end of a round, whoever played their last tile scores zero and everyone else totals the pips remaining in their own hand as penalty points - the fewer pips left over, the better. If every player is stuck and nobody can move, the round still ends immediately in the same way; each player simply counts whatever pips they’re holding.

Most tables score the double-blank as zero pips, same as any other tile showing no spots. A common house variant scores it as a flat 50 points instead, which makes it painful to be caught holding at the end of a round and worth playing or drawing around earlier. Agree on which one you’re using before the session starts.

Run through all 13 rounds of a full session - double-12 down to double-blank - adding each round’s penalty points to a running total. The player with the lowest total across the whole session wins.

How the game ends

A single round ends the moment a player plays their last domino, or the moment every remaining player is stuck and nobody can lay a tile anywhere on the table. Either way, score the round as above, then clear the layout, reshuffle, and deal fresh hands for the next round, opened by the next double down from the one that started the round before it.

A full session ends after the thirteenth round, started by the double-blank, has been scored. Add up all 13 rounds’ penalty points per player, and the lowest total wins the session. Many casual groups shorten this to a handful of rounds, or just one, rather than playing the complete descending set from double-12 to double-blank - that’s a fine way to play a quicker game, it just isn’t the full tournament-style session.

Common variations

Beyond the scoring and tap/uno differences already called out above, groups vary on a few other points. Some let a player who runs out of dominoes on their very first turn immediately start a new round rather than waiting out the rest of that round. Others cap how many trains a single marked-open train can be added to in one turn, or restrict doubles from counting as spinners that branch the layout into a third direction, keeping every train a single line out from the hub. None of these change the core idea - match the open ends, keep your own train moving, and watch for an open double or a marked train you can play on.

Mexican Train shares its tiles and its matching rule with dominoes, which is worth learning first if the branching trains here feel like a lot to track at once - the block and draw games there use the same basic move. If your group likes tile-based games with a similar hand-management feel but no boneyard to dig through, mahjong scratches a related itch with a very different structure underneath.