A domino game played by two teams of two persons each. Each player takes seven dominoes, then bids on his hand. The highest bidder names trump and leads out the first domino. The trump suit can be Blanks, Ones (Aces), Twos (Deuces), Threes (Treys), etc. to Sixes, Doubles, or No Trump (sometimes called Follow Me). Each player plays a domino in turn following suit. The highest play takes the "trick" and leads the next domino. If you can not follow suit, you can play a trump, give a "point domino", or discard a bad domino.

Each hand has Forty-Two points, hench the name Forty-Two. Each domino that adds up to five or ten is a "point domino" and equals five or ten points, respectively, i.e., five/blank , four/one , three/two , six/four , and the double five . Each "trick" is worth one point. A trick is four dominos played one by each person. A hand of Forty-Two consists of seven tricks. All the point dominoes plus the seven tricks add up to Forty-Two points.

Each game is played until one team reaches seven marks. A team scores a "mark" by making their bid. If someone bids in "marks" (see below), all tricks must be taken by the bidding team. When scoring, the word "ALL" can be spelled, representing the seven marks in a game.

Bidding ranges from a minimum of '30' (meaning you expect to win a combination of point dominos and tricks to equal 30 points) to '42' ("One Mark"), '84' ("Two Marks") '126' ("Three Marks"), '168' ("Four Marks") '210' ("Five Marks"). A player may start bidding at '84'. Three Marks or higher can only be made after someone declares a Two Mark bid. Other than '84' ("Two Marks"), the bid in "Marks" can incress by only "one Mark" per bid. Example: "84", "Three Marks", "Four Marks", "Five Marks" is OK. But "84", "Pass", "Four Marks", "Pass" is a bid of "Three Marks" not "Four Marks" Each player only bids once. A bid of "36" can only lose one trick with a five count in it or tricks with no game. Bids of "37", "38", "39", "40", or "41" can only lose 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1 trick(s), respectively, provided none of the tricks lost contain 'point' dominos."

Doubles can be a trump suit of its own. A player does not have to follow the suit of the double, but does have to play a double if he has one in his hand. For example, if doubles are trump and the double three is lead out, and you have the three/two , you are not required to play the three/two because the double three is not a trey suite, but a double suite. Three/six is the high trey in doubles.

Each trick is pulled and displayed by the team that wins it unless the bid is for one mark or more. If the bid is for one mark or more, the tricks are stacked. Stacking can be single stacked (one trick on top of each other) or double stacked (two tricks, side by side, the last two tricks showing). Once a Domino is played you can not pick it up to look under it. Single or double stacking is agreed to before play begins. Keeping track of the played domino's is wise. How many trump are out? What "off's" are out to be lead? Look for the six smallest leads, Ace/Blank , Deuce/Blank , Deuce/Ace , Trey/Blank , Trey/ Ace , Trey/Deuce .

A renege is failure to "follow suit" when you have a domino that matches the suit of the lead domino. When a teamplayer reneges, the opposing team wins the bid.

See FORTY-TWO TERMS & DEFINITIONS