42 Card game

9th grade, every 4th period—we called them “bands” at U-32 high school: Sam, Greta, Lee, Jesse and Claudia played Hearts. That introduced Claudia to the concept of taking tricks. Rummy never held its own after that.

Meanwhile, Jim was settling in to a lifelong Monday night poker habit with his brothers and cousins, whenever he was in the area.

Skip ahead a decade or two, about the time Jim & Claudia got married. Casey brought “Australian 500” into our lives and put the complex joy of bidding into play.

But Oz 500, like Bridge, requires partners and four people. When there’s a shortage of card players, what’s left?

Cribbage works with two players, and is complicated enough for those spoiled by bidding and tricks. So that worked for us for a long time.

Because boredom, desperation or freelancing from home, are each capable of mothering invention, and because—let’s face it—nothing beats bidding, we made up “42” sometime around August 2012.

We’ve played cribbage a couple times since then, and still enjoy “500” (not Rummy) when there are enough people to play, but we chose “42” an average of (we’re making this number up, but think it’s probably close to true) 9.999 times out of 10. If you like card games with bidding and tricks, we suspect you might too.

We invite you to read the directions to see if you think this could be for you. Or for someone you know who likes cards.

Enjoy.
Thanks for being here.
In Love,
Claudia & Jim

PS the boards are Vermont maple, made in Vermont. Which is pretty sweet. Boards do not include a deck of cards, but you just need a regular old deck of playing cards to go with it.