42 (dominoes) - Variations

Variations

• 84, a variant played with two sets of dominoes. Play usually consists of six to eight players. Some of the terminology also differs, such as bidding "pistol" instead of "nello".

• 72, a variant played with two sets of dominoes, blanks removed. Play usually consists of four players. Each player gets 10 dominoes, the starting bid is 40. The two remaining dominoes, known as "The Widow", goes to whoever gets the bid. That person must then throw away two dominoes, though they are not allowed to throw away trumps or count. If this can't be avoided, any count goes to the other team, and any trump that is thrown out must be turned face up.

• Shoot the Moon is another variant. In this game, no domino has a special value, and all tricks remain worth one point. The game is played by removing all of the blank dominoes except for the blank ace. If a team is denied the possibility of winning, or set, then they instead lose the amount they bid from their total. The game is played to 21 points, and the minimum bid is 4. The name of the game comes from "shooting the moon." If a player states during the bidding phase that they will shoot the moon, then they must catch all tricks. Doing so is worth 21 points. Failing to catch all 7 tricks results in a loss of 21 points. This is the highest possible bid, unless another player elects to "shoot it over" the player who is shooting the moon; this makes their own bid worth 42 points. There are no special contracts in this game.

• Geezer uses a set of double seven dominoes and each player draws nine. The 7-3 adds another ten count and the minimum bid is 39. A 46 bid will out bid one mark and conventions include "dip," "dive," and "plunge" bids depending on the number of doubles (3, 4 or 5) held. A dip is two marks, dive is three and plunge is four. An opening 41 bid invites the watery responses, but a naked dip, dive or plunge is allowed. Otherwise a two mark bid is the maximum allowed except to overbid another. Third bidder must bid or the fourth bidder may either ask his partner to name trumps or play 39 for two marks. The eccentrics who developed this game also added strange low bids for nello, in which anything can be low in its suit. Thus if 3s are low, a 3-6 is lower than the 6-blank. The successful bidder's partner does not play in a nello game. There is also a 51 bid, in which count is trump and 5 or 10 count dominoes must be played in response to a count lead of the bidder and the bidder must catch all except three tricks with no count on the three. What others would deem to be cheating is mere convention, as players signal their partners what they can catch by pointing a domino, spinning it counterclockwise or clockwise or even place it at various angles. Invented by good Presbyterian professional men who learned 42 from their grandmothers and who will be happy to tell a newby if he wins. Started as a way to justify the purchase (for $.50) of a bag of assorted dominoes by an incredibly thrifty (cheap)individual. Expanded to anything-low when Weird Charlie from Orange introduced the concept of doubles low at a Mo Ranch retreat. He lost, but it was inspirational.

• The Big Game is a variant for players who want a challenging game based on a larger set of tiles instead of special bids. (It is a mathematically accurate extension of 42 from 7 to 11 tricks.) All rules in The Big Game are the same as "standard 42" except:
  • Play is with an 8-8 set of dominoes. (You can create an 8-8 set by taking a 9-9 set and removing the ten tiles with 9s on them. This leaves a 45-tile 8-8 set.)
  • The counters are still all tiles of weight 5 or 10. (This adds 2 more counters worth ten each: the 7-3 and 8-2). Counters are thus: 0-5, 1-4, 2-3, 4-6, 5-5, 7-3, 8-2.
  • In the deal, each of the four players takes 11 tiles each. One tile is not dealt and is left face-down.
  • The minimum starting bid is 42. Bidding proceeds clockwise, and players continue in the bidding process until they pass. (Unlike 42, players may make more than one bid, until they pass.) A Game is 400 points across hands.
  • The bid winner looks at the one tile left over face-down from the deal. If it is a Counter, he MUST take it into his hand. If it is not a Counter, he may choose whether to take it into his hand. If the bid winner takes the tile into his hand, he discards face-down some other non-counter tile to take his hand back down to 11 tiles. Thus all counters are always in play.
  • If either of the "new" counter tiles are led to a trick (the 3-7 or the 2-8), the person who leads the tile may optionally announce that the lower number on the tile is the suit of the trick. So you can lead the 3-7 to the trick as a 3-suit tile (the third highest tile in the 3’s suit), and lead the 2-8 as the second highest tile in the 2’s suit. This rule only applies to leads of the 3-7 or 2-8, only when announced by the trick leader, and only when these tiles are not members of the trump suit.

• 3-handed 42 is played by only three players. The blank-ace is removed from the set, and each player draws 9 dominoes. Bidding is usually the same as in traditional 4-handed play (i.e. minimum bid of 30 and so forth).