Dominoes spots from one to six are generally arranged as they are on six-sided dice, but because blank ends having no spots are used, seven faces are possible, allowing 28 unique pieces in a double-six set. However, this is a relatively small number especially when playing with more than four people, so many domino sets are "extended" by introducing ends with greater numbers of spots, which increases the number of unique combinations of ends and thus of pieces. Each progressively larger set increases the maximum number of pips on an end by three, so the common extended sets are double-nine, double-12,
Dominoes double leads with that double, for example "double-six". If no one has it, the next-highest double is called: "double-five?", then "double-four?", etc. until the highest double in any of the players' hands is played. If no player has an "opening" double, the next heaviest domino in the highest suit is called - "six-five?", "six-four?". In some variants, players take turns picking dominoes from the stock until an opening double is picked and played. In other variants, the hand is reshuffled and each player picks seven dominoes. After the first hand, the winner (or winning team) of the previous hand is