Kitchen-table rules that wander

If you learned forty-two at somebody's table, you learned a whole game before you ever saw it written down. That is normal. The Handbook of Texas says the game moved by word of mouth for a century before Winning 42 put rules, strategy, and history in a book in the 1990s. So when two tables disagree, do not be in a hurry to call one of them wrong. Ask where the rule came from.

Here is the split, as far as I can actually point at a source.

In the Handbook. Forty-two points in a hand. First team to 250. A double-six set. Partners, bidding, trumps. The start of the game in Trapp Spring, now Garner, in 1887, with William Thomas and Walter Earl. That is Dennis Roberson's Handbook of Texas entry, not a guess.

In the association's own bylaws. The National 42 Players Association's constitution, posted at n42pa.org, says qualifying play is "straight 42." The same section says no plunge, no nello, and no sevens. I am not listing their events. I am only saying what that document says about the form of the game. Their pages, if you want them from the club itself, are n42pa.org, the Facebook group, and @N42PA.

On this site, because that is how the puzzles are drawn. Seven tricks are one point each. Five dominoes carry the other thirty-five: the double-five and the six-four are ten, and the five-blank, the four-ace, and the trey-deuce are five. The double is the highest domino in its suit. A domino that shows the trump number is trump. That is the count and the rank this site uses when it draws a hand. The Handbook says a hand is forty-two points. It does not print that five-domino list in the entry. I am not going to pretend it does.

Traditional, meaning oral. Not pinned to a page I can hand you. A lot of kitchens play doubles as their own trump, high double-six down to double-blank. A lot of kitchens play marks, follow-me, or a low bid their own way. I hear those. I am not citing them to the Handbook, and I did not find doubles-as-trump in the bylaws text I read. If your table plays them, say "this house" and keep going. That is how the game lived before anybody printed it.

If a later note claims a rule, it will say where it came from, or it will say it is table talk. Both are welcome. Only one of them is a source.

Sources for the parts that have them:

• Dennis Roberson, "Forty-Two (Domino Game)," Handbook of Texas Online. tshaonline.org
• National 42 Players Association Constitution and By-Laws, Article IV, straight 42, and the exclusion of plunge, nello, and sevens. PDF
• This site's own puzzle check, which is code, not a history book. It is named here so the count in the puzzles is not an orphan.