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Mexican Train strategy

Before you play a tile, find the longest chain you can build from your own train's open end. Those tiles are safe: nobody else can play on your train while it has no marker. Lay that chain on your first turn, then use your other turns to get rid of the tiles that don't fit it, biggest first, on the Mexican Train and on marked trains.

By Emre Özen, updated October 8, 2026. The numbers come from exact counts over the 91-tile set and from full 13-round games between copies of our computer player, played under the pagat.com rules our Mexican Train game uses. New to the game? Start with how to play Mexican Train.

Plan your own train first

Say the engine is the double 12 and you hold 12-5, 5-7, 7-8, 8-3, 9-11 and 4-6. Your chain is 12-5, 5-7, 7-8, 8-3: four tiles that go on your train in that order. The 9-11 and 4-6 are orphans. They only leave your hand if some public train happens to end in a 9, 11, 4 or 6.

That split decides most turns. Your chain tiles will always have a home, as long as nobody else gets onto your train. Orphans won't, and they're the tiles that cost you at the end of a round. So when you have a choice, play an orphan on a public train and keep the chain for later. Out of two orphans, play the one with more pips: a 9-11 left in your hand costs 20, a 4-6 only 10.

Our strong computer player works exactly this way. Every turn it works out the longest chain it can build from its train's end, then picks the move that leaves it the fewest orphan tiles and pips. Against a player that just plays its biggest tile, it won 480 of 500 two-player games, 277 of 300 three-player games and 276 of 300 four-player games (one strong player against all easy ones).

Your first turn: lay the whole chain, especially with four players

Under pagat's main rule you can lay as many tiles as you like on your train on your first turn. It's tempting to hold some back, so you're never stuck later. We tested that: one strong player laid just one tile on its first turn and kept the rest; the others laid their whole chain.

Game	Player who laid one tile won	Its average final total	The others' average total
2 players	267 of 500	320	332
4 players	0 of 300	798	355

With two players it hardly mattered. With four it was a disaster. The reason is time. In our two-player games a round lasted about 29 turns per player; with four players, about 9. Someone goes out before you get to play the tiles you saved, and you're caught holding them. Lay the chain. In our test games, players laid 9.0 tiles on an average first turn.

Sometimes you can't start at all. With 15 tiles from the 90 left after the engine is set aside, the chance that none of them matches the engine is 9.5%, about one round in ten. Our test games came out at 9.6%.

Get your marker off fast

A marker invites everyone onto your train. One tile from someone else changes your open end, and the chain you planned may not fit any more. So when you've been marked and two moves look about equal, take the one on your own train: it closes the door. We'll be straight about the evidence, though. We haven't measured this, so treat it as a tiebreaker. The other side of it: when an opponent's train is marked, that's a place to dump orphans, and maybe to change their end to a number you suspect they don't hold.

Doubles: play them when you can follow up

A double is a free extra play, as long as you have a second tile to put down after it. Without one you have to draw, and if the drawn tile doesn't fit, you pass with a marker and leave an open double for the next player. Our strong player checks for a follow-up before it plays a double. We tested a version that didn't check: it won 247 of 500 two-player games against the careful one, with an average total of 313 against 303. That gap is small enough that chance alone could explain it, so don't agonize over it. Just look for the second tile before you lay the double.

An open double also forces the next player's hand: they must cover it or draw. If you hold several tiles of the double's number and the others seem short of it, leaving it open can cost them a draw. Covering a double counts as your turn, so it's a good place for an orphan with that number.

Mind the big tiles and the clock

The 91 tiles hold 1,092 pips, an average of 12 a tile, so a fresh 15-tile hand averages about 180. The double 12 alone is 24. A round can end fast: in our four-player games someone went out after about 34 turns in all. If a player is down to two or three tiles, stop saving anything and play your highest tiles wherever they fit.

Draws add up too. In our two-player games each round had about 31 draws, because there are 60 tiles in the boneyard and only two hands to play from. With four players it was about 12.

Our numbers

What we measured	2 players	4 players
Games in the test	500	300
Rounds that ended blocked (nobody could play)	6%	0.4%
Rounds where the player who started went out first	48%	26%
Turns in an average round, all players	59	34
Average score per player per round	23.4	29.9
Average final total after 13 rounds	304	389

Method: full 13-round games between copies of our strong computer player, each with its own shuffle, using pagat's first-turn rule and 15 tiles each, October 2026. The script and its output are in our site's code. Computer players aren't people. Real players hold back, bluff and misplay in ways ours don't, so treat these as one well-defined benchmark, not a law.

Practice with hints

The quickest way to learn the chain habit is to play and check. In our Mexican Train game online, the Hint button marks the tile and train the strong computer would pick and says why: the next tile of your chain, an orphan to shed, a double you can follow up, or your marker to clear. You get 6 hints a game. If you play with real dominoes, our printable score sheet keeps the totals.

Sources

Our simulations and exact counts, October 2026, using the same code as our game (scripts/mexican-train-sim.test.ts).
John McLeod, "Mexican Train", pagat.com (the rules the test games follow).