Texas 42 Domino Rules

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How to Play Texas 42 Dominos

Texas 42 is a partnership game where four players play with the standard Domino set or the double-six set. Partners will sit across each other. This game can also be played up to seven players. The rules are based and are very similar to the card game Bridge. In fact, it was conceived by a boy who was disallowed to play cards. This Domino game doesn’t follow the basic Domino rule of connecting tiles. This is a game on bidding.

The game will start with shuffling the tiles, facedown and then each player drawing seven tiles to make up their hand. The shuffler and his partner are usually the last one to draw and the player to his left will be the first to bid. Bidding will move clockwise. Players can choose to pass the bid. Each bid should be higher than the previous bids. The least that players can bid is 30. If nobody calls a bid, the game will revert back to reshuffling the tiles.

Hands are set of tricks that have the following points, 0-5, 1-4 and 2-3 are all 5 points, while 4-6 and 5-5 are equivalent to 10 points. Points are also called honors. They are awarded to the player winning the trick. The seven tricks and five honors total to 42 points, thus the name of the game.

The highest bidder will then declare a trump suit and start playing a tile on the suit. If he calls for fives, he should play a tile from that suit. All players will also play the same with the doubles as the highest tile. The winner will then lead the next domino suit. The bidder can also opt to declare “no trump” or “follow me”. In no trump games, player will not be following suits but will play tiles following high ends of previously played tiles.

Scoring the game will depend if the bidder meets his bid. If the bid is met, both sides earn their total points, if the bid is not met; only the other team will earn the score. The score to be awarded is the total points plus the bid. For bids over 42, the score to be awarded is the bid. If the winning bid is over 42, the winner should hit the top score of 42 for the bid point to be rewarded.

The first team to reach a pre-determined goal wins.

Video: Learning Texas42 Dominos