Mexican Train vs Chicken Foot: What Is the Difference?

These two games get confused constantly, and it is easy to see why: same dominoes, same countdown of rounds, same idea that the pips left in your hand count against you. Groups often own both and describe them interchangeably as “the domino game with the trains.” They are not the same game, and the difference is bigger than it first looks.

The short version: Mexican Train gives everyone a private lane; Chicken Foot makes everyone fight over one shared board. Everything else follows from that.

Mexican Train vs Chicken Foot at a Glance

The Structural Difference: Trains vs One Shared Layout

In Mexican Train, the engine goes in the middle and every player builds their own chain out from it. Your train is yours. Nobody else may touch it unless you fail to play and place a marker on it, at which point it opens to the table until you play on it again. Alongside those personal trains sits one communal Mexican Train that anyone may start or extend at any time.

That structure is why Mexican Train rewards planning. You can arrange your hand into a long chain before the round even starts, then spend the round laying it down, knowing the lane is reserved for you. For the complete picture, see the full Mexican Train rules.

Chicken Foot has none of that. There is one shared layout in the middle — often called the barnyard — and every player adds to whatever open end they can match. No lanes, no ownership, no markers. Your careful plan can be dismantled by the two people who play before your turn comes back, because the ends you were counting on are simply gone.

The Doubles Rule Is the Real Divider

If you only remember one difference, make it this one.

In Mexican Train, playing a double earns you an immediate extra play, and that play must cover the double. Until it is covered, that double is the only legal spot on the table for everybody. If you cannot cover your own double, you draw one tile; if that fails, a marker goes on your train and the next players in turn must try to cover it. It is a sharp, short-lived block. The doubles section of the rules covers every edge case.

In Chicken Foot, laying a double stops the table for far longer. The next three plays — by whoever is next in turn, not by the person who laid it — must all be made against that double, branching off it until three tiles project from it. That splayed three-toed shape is the chicken foot the game is named after. Only when the foot is complete does the rest of the layout reopen. The opening double of each round is treated the same way: the layout must be built out from it on all sides before play spreads.

The practical effect is enormous. In Chicken Foot, one double can dictate the next three turns for the entire table, which makes holding doubles a genuinely aggressive weapon and makes getting stuck with them a much larger risk.

Scoring: Where That 50-Point Double-Blank Comes From

Both games score the same basic way. When somebody plays their last tile, the round ends. That player scores zero, everyone else counts the pips left in their hand, and the lowest cumulative total after all rounds wins.

The difference is the double-blank. In Chicken Foot, the 0-0 is worth 50 points — that is standard, though some groups count it as 25. Under standard Mexican Train scoring, every tile is simply worth its pips, so the double-blank is worth nothing at all.

This is worth spelling out because the 50-point double-blank is one of the most common Mexican Train house rules, and it almost certainly migrated over from Chicken Foot in households that play both. If your family plays it that way in Mexican Train, you are playing a Chicken Foot import — a perfectly good house rule, just not the standard one. Our scoring guide covers the standard method and the popular variations.

Drawing, Passing and Getting Stuck

Mexican Train has the more forgiving structure here. If you cannot play, you draw one tile; if that still does not fit, you mark your train open and your turn ends. The marker is a real cost — opponents can now dump onto your train — but you always have somewhere to unload later, because open trains accumulate around the table.

Chicken Foot is blunter. There are no markers and no personal trains, so if you cannot play you draw one tile and, failing that, simply pass. With the layout frequently frozen by an unfinished foot, being unable to play happens more often, and there is no equivalent of the friendly open train waiting to absorb your worst tile.

Where Chicken Foot Came From

Honestly: nobody has documented this well. Chicken Foot is said to have originated in Texas or Mexico, and it is generally described as a version of the older domino game Maltese Cross, which shares the idea of building outward from a central double in fixed directions. Beyond that the trail is folklore rather than record.

The same caution applies to Mexican Train, whose name has a much better story behind it than most people expect — we lay out what is documented and what is legend on the Mexican Train history page.

The Crossover: Branching Doubles

There is a well-known Mexican Train variant that borrows the Chicken Foot mechanic outright. Under branching doubles, playing a double does not just require a cover tile — it opens a new branch that must be built out with multiple tiles before play continues normally. Groups that enjoy both games often drift toward this hybrid without realizing they have merged the two.

It is a legitimate way to play, and it makes Mexican Train considerably more chaotic. If your table wants that, it is easier to just play Chicken Foot. Our variations page covers branching doubles alongside the other popular house rules.

Which One Should You Play?

Play Mexican Train if your group likes planning, you want everyone to have something constructive to do on every turn, or you are playing with a wide age range. The personal-train structure means a beginner can quietly build their own chain without being wrecked by more experienced players every round, which is exactly why it became a fixture at family gatherings and senior centers.

Play Chicken Foot if your group enjoys blocking, likes swings, and does not mind a plan being torn up between turns. It is faster to explain, it plays well with a double-9 set, and the foot mechanic produces genuinely funny moments of the whole table being held hostage by one tile.

If you want to try Mexican Train right now, our version is free to play in your browser — solo against Easy, Medium or Hard bots, or pass-and-play with up to 4 at the table. Every deal is genuinely random and reproducible from its seed, so nothing is nudged for or against you. New to the game entirely? The beginner walkthrough narrates a full round from the deal to the final score.