Slosh

This is a four handed British member of the Trains family, played with the double six set. The games gets its name from the word "slosh", which refers to water or other liquids spilling over the edge of their container onto something or someone. Think of splashing someone with our beer while sitting at a bar and you will see why the game got this name.

Equipment
The game uses a double six domino set, some markers and four players.

The Deal
Each player gets a hand of six tiles, leaving a boneyard of four tiles that is not used in the round. The engine for the first round is the double four, then the following rounds use the double five, double six, double one, double two and finally double three.

The player who has the engine for the round has to place it first; if this tile is in the boneyard, the hand is re-dealt until someone has the engine for this round. Play then proceeds to the left.

The Play
Each player has his own train. Traditionally, the four trains are built to extend diagonally from the four corners of the engine, not from the sides and ends.

In his turn, a player adds a tile to his own train if he can. If he cannot do so, the next player in turn may add a tile to the blocked player's train before adding a tile to his own train. Playing a tile on your right-hand opponent's train because he was unable to is called "sloshing". If the player before you was able to play on his train, you are only allowed to play on your own train.

Scoring
Scoring is done with poker chips, but you can use paper and pencil. The round is over when someone dominoes or the game is blocked. The hands are scored by counting the number of pips left in each hand. The player who dominoes has a score of zero. The lowest scoring player is paid the difference between his score and that of the other players.

This rule was written by Joe Celko.
© Joe Celko, John McLeod 2001, 2004