Prepare yourself against authentic AI Mexican Train Dominoes players

Artificial Intelligence (AI) gameplay has been a key component to video games for decades. Generally, the "smarter" the AI the more challenging the game. But "smarts" in AI is a complicated matter. In a game like Mexican Train Dominoes, classic house rules steer everyone's best strategy to play as many of your initial dominoes as possible before drawing from the boneyard. Always keep your train closed, and hope luck is on your side.

Using a standard double-12 dominoes set, a human player might start with an open train because they missed identifying a tile or might confuse or miscalculate when to play doubles to string together more turns.

AI and computers have no issue identifying every tile, every time, when programmed accordingly. No AI players will confuse a 4-pip domino for a 5-pip domino.

Mexican Train Dominoes' gold standard AI gameplay

Mexican Train Dominoes wants you to construct the longest continuous domino path you can with the tiles you're dealt. Some human players may strategize against other players' human instincts. For instance, if you have two doubles, you might strategize which to play first so you can connect two or three other dominoes in between, even when you have a continuous path available.

But you also recognize other players may be able to go during these turns, revealing other clues to their tiles. Late in the game, you might risk being unable to draw or your friends might end up playing on other player's trains.

In a well-programmed Mexican Train Dominoes game, the gold standard for AI gameplay makes no distinction for your dominoes or anyone else's. AI will attempt the maximum path-building possible every time it has the opportunity.

The benefits of this make for an interesting and fun game that's slightly different from playing Mexican Train Dominoes with friends or family.

• Your strategy against AI players shifts, encouraging you to think more literally. This isn't necessarily good or bad, but among dominoes and other board games, a lot of people play more casually. AI can, at times, be harder.
• AI game instructions don't know about or account for luck. Humans do. And sometimes humans bet on it.
• AI gameplay is usually faster. Friends are great, but depending on the ages and experience of other players, each turn will generally take longer.

Mexican Train Dominoes, classic fun for a futuristic time

In a time of extremely detailed, textured, and complex video games, Mexican Train Dominoes stands as a classic and timeless game. It remains simple, easy to learn, and a great game to pass the time without requiring advanced consoles, PCs, or a lot of time.

Playing Mexican Train Dominoes against computer AI players has some other benefits:

• All the scorekeeping is done automatically and without errors. No score pad or math required!
• The Mexican Train Dominoes' classic variant rules are equally and universally enforced. There are no gray areas or judgments about what a player is supposed to do or how they encountered a situation earlier with a different outcome or ruling.
• It's a great way to practice if you're learning about Mexican Train Dominoes, since your strategy can focus on path-building, closing your open train, or just avoiding thinking about what other players are strategizing.

Because the AI computation can get taxing to properly strategize which tile to play next, one downside is you usually can't play Mexican Train with more than four players on a computer. But this is of little concern to most people since the real value of playing Mexican Train Dominoes with more than four players is to spend time with friends and family.

Play Mexican Train Dominoes online for free

You can play Mexican Train Dominoes anytime, for free, with no account required. Available in the iOS and Google Play store, in your browser, and it even works on Kindles.

Test your strategy, try out different turn-based approaches, and work to win with the tiles you're dealt across 12 full rounds on-demand.