The games that grew up next to forty-two
History
Forty-two did not stay one game. Once people know how to bid and take tricks with dominoes, they start changing the numbers. Here are the relatives that are written down, and where they are written down. I am only telling you what those pages say. I have not traced who first played any of these, and I am not going to guess.
Moon. Moon, sometimes called Shoot the Moon, is for three players, with no partners. Wikipedia's 42 article describes it this way: take out all the blank dominoes except the double-blank, so 22 are left. Each player draws 7, and the one left over is set aside. The high bidder may swap one domino for it. There is no count. Every trick is 1 point, the lowest bid is 4, and the game goes to 21. Bidding to "shoot the moon" means promising to take all seven tricks. Pagat, a card and domino rules site, also lists Moon as part of the 42 family on the page it archived from Howard Fosdick's cardsanddominoes.com.
84. Wikipedia describes 84 as a version played with two double-six sets, usually by eight players. Each still draws 7. The lowest bid is 60.
88. Also two sets, but six players, each drawing 9, with 2 dominoes left over that the high bidder can choose to keep or throw away. Count cannot be thrown away. The lowest bid is 60.
Geezer. This one uses a double-seven set, and each player draws nine. Adding the sevens adds one more ten: the seven-trey. Wikipedia gives the lowest bid as 39.
The Big Game. Howard Fosdick's page, archived on pagat, calls this "our favorite variation," and pagat's own note calls it his invention. It uses a double-eight set, eleven dominoes each, and 11 tricks. The count is still every domino whose spots add to 5 or 10, so the seven-trey and eight-deuce join it as tens.
If you look closely, all of these keep the same idea that makes forty-two work. Tricks are worth a point, a handful of dominoes carry count, and a bid is a promise about how much your side will catch. Change the set, and you change the numbers. The habit of play stays the same.
Sources:
- "42 (dominoes)," Wikipedia, sections on variations (Moon, 84, 88, Geezer, The Big Game). en.wikipedia.org)
- Howard Fosdick, "42 and Variations," archived on pagat.com from cardsanddominoes.com. pagat.com
- John McLeod, "Texas 42," pagat.com, introduction noting Fosdick's page and The Big Game. pagat.com