The rules
How a hand of 42 is played
Read this once and you can sit down at a table. It's a trick-taking game: if you've played spades or bridge the shape will be familiar, and the one genuinely new idea is in step 5.
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Get four people and a set of bones
One standard double-six set, 28 dominoes. Four players in two partnerships, partners sitting across from each other, so play alternates between the sides as it goes around the table.
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Wash and draw
Turn the dominoes face down and shuffle them around the table with both hands. Each player draws seven and stands them up where only they can see the faces. Seven each uses all 28; nothing is left over, so every domino is in somebody's hand. That matters more than it sounds: a careful player can account for every tile in the game.
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Bid, once, going around
Starting to the shaker's left and moving clockwise, each player either passes or names a number. The minimum bid is 30, each bid must beat the last, and you only get one turn, with no second chances once it passes you. The top of the normal range is 42, and above that you bid in marks (see contracts). If everyone passes, throw the hand in and shuffle again.
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High bidder names trump and leads
The winning bidder calls a suit (blanks, aces, deuces, treys, fours, fives or sixes) and every domino containing that number becomes a trump. Trumps beat everything that isn't a trump. The bidder then leads the first trick.
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Follow suit, and remember every bone has two of them
This is the part that catches everyone. A domino has two ends, and each end is a suit, so most tiles belong to two suits at once. If you can follow the suit that was led, you must.
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Highest domino takes the trick
If anyone played a trump, the highest trump wins. If not, the highest domino of the suit that was led wins. Anything else, a tile of neither the led suit nor trump, is a sluff and cannot win. Whoever takes the trick leads the next one.
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Add up, and see whether the bid was made
Seven tricks are played and the hand is over. The bidding side counts what it took. If it reached the bid, it scores. If it fell short, it's set and the other side scores instead.
Step five, in detail
Which suit is it?
Three rules settle every case, in this order.
1. Trump wins the argument
If a domino contains the trump number, it is a trump and nothing else. With fives trump, the 5-2 is a trump, not a deuce. It can't be played as a deuce, and it can't be forced out by a deuce lead.
2. Otherwise the big end rules
When a non-trump domino is led, the higher end is the suit led. With fives trump, leading the 6-3 leads sixes. Everyone with a six must play one.
3. Doubles are the boss
The double of a suit outranks every other domino in it. The 6-6 beats the 6-5, the 6-4, and the rest. Unless doubles have been called as trump, which is its own contract.
House rules vary
A few tables let the leader announce which end they mean instead of defaulting to the higher one. It's not the tournament rule, but it's worth asking before the first hand rather than arguing after it.
The same tile, two jobs
Call fives and this is your trump: a middling one, but untouchable by any deuce. Call deuces and it's a deuce. Call sixes and it's neither: a tile you can only sluff. One domino, three completely different values, depending on a decision made before a single tile hit the table.
Ranking
Strongest to weakest, with fives as trump
The seven trumps
BossWeakest
The double is highest, then the rest in order of their other end. Every suit has exactly seven dominoes when it's trump.
The sixes, with fives trump
BossWeakest
Only six of them; the 6-5 has been pulled out into the trump suit. That's why calling trump reshapes every other suit at the table too.
Scoring
Where the forty-two points live
Seven tricks are worth a point apiece. The other 35 are printed on five dominoes, and they belong to whoever wins the trick they're played in, not to whoever held them. Losing a trick with the 5-5 in it hands ten points to the other side.
Every counting domino's pips add to five or ten. That's the whole pattern; you don't have to memorize a list, just add the ends.
Keeping game score
| Method | How it works | Game |
|---|---|---|
| Marks | Make your bid and take one mark, whatever the bid was. Get set and the other side takes it instead. Bids above 42 are worth their number of marks. This is the tournament game and what most tables play now. | 7 marks |
| Points | Score the points you actually took. A set side scores the amount of the bid on top of its own points. Slower, older, and still played in plenty of kitchens. | 250 |
Ask before you start
Marks games are sometimes played to three or five rather than seven, and the points game has more than one way of scoring a set. Neither changes how a hand is played, only how long the evening runs.
One thing not to do
Renege
Playing off-suit when you could have followed is a renege, and it costs your side the hand outright. It's almost always an honest mistake, usually somebody forgetting that the tile in their hand contains the trump number. Take your time on the first few hands. Nobody at a 42 table has ever minded a beginner thinking.
Table talk is the other rule everyone enforces: no signalling, no commentary on your hand, no hinting at what you want led. Say the bid, play the bone.