The Domino Effect
We’ve all seen it in movies – the domino effect, where one small action triggers a chain reaction that leads to a massive fall of countless bricks. In the world of business, it’s an apt metaphor for a series of events that can impact a whole industry in unforeseen ways. The domino effect can be good or bad, and is often difficult to predict.
Dominoes are a set of twenty-seven rectangular tiles, normally twice as long as they are wide. They feature a line down the center to divide them visually into two squares, each marked with an arrangement of spots, or “pips,” like those on a die, except that some squares are blank (indicated in the listing below by a zero). The value of a domino is determined by the number of pips on each face of its half-squares. When the domino has an entire side of pips, it is called a double-six, and when it has a single side of pips, it is a double-five.
A domino’s two values define its suit, which is the group of numbers it belongs to in a game. There are also a number of other factors that determine the suit, such as the color and pattern of the dots on a tile’s surface.
Each player chooses a domino from the set of tiles at the start of play, selecting a tile whose value is closest to the sum of the other players’ remaining tiles. The first player to play a domino must then place it on the table, positioning it so that it will either produce a chain of adjacent tiles or leave open ends in which other players can continue to build their chains.
If a player can’t play his or her domino, it is removed from the boneyard and the next player takes his turn. Each successive player must draw and take advantage of the dominoes already on the board, and each must also consider how to shape his or her own.
There are many different types of domino games, but most are played with the same basic rules. The most popular are layout games, in which players try to build a sequence of dominoes that will result in a particular score.
Each layout game is a bit different, but they all share the same goal of placing pieces in such a way that they will produce a specific result. When the result is a chain of dominoes that produces the desired outcome, the process is called a win. This type of victory is what makes domino so compelling to play and to watch.