FOLLOW ME 42 T E X A S TM THE NATIONAL GAME OF TEXAS

History of Texas 84 & Texas 88

Two Boxes of Dominoes, Bigger Teams, and Games Named for What They Add Up To

When Four Chairs Are Not Enough

Texas 42 uses one 28-tile set and seats exactly four. Howard Fosdick's summary of the game on Pagat names the problem that follows from that: since 42 is often played at Texas family gatherings, "there are a number of variants that attempt to allow more people to play together."

One answer is more tables. Puremco's eight-page "42" rule leaflet, scanned and archived by Paul Proft on texas42.net, ends with a section called "Eight Players or More": set up two games at two tables, and after each game the winners move up a table and the losers move down, so partners keep changing. The idea is old. texas42.net records a March 21, 1911 item from Texas A&M's Battalion, found in the 1911 Longhorn yearbook, that mentions a "partner in the progressive '42' game."

The other answer is one big table and two boxes of dominoes. Mix two double-six sets into 56 tiles, split six or eight players into two teams in alternating seats, and everything doubles, the count included. That is the family Pagat gathers under the title "Texas 88, 84, 80 and 74."

Named for the Total

42 is named for what one hand adds up to: 35 points of count plus a point for each of the 7 tricks. The two-set games follow the same habit. Groups differ on how many players sit down, which tiles come out of the box, and what a trick or a double is worth, so the totals differ, and so do the names. These are the versions we found in print or online:

NamePlayersTilesDealCountPlusLowest bid
886569 each, 2 in the kitty709 tricks x 260
848567 each, no kitty707 tricks x 2, or 14 doubles x 160
846569 each, 2 in the kitty7014 doubles x 1, tricks score 060 (Mack), 50 (Sun City)
84442, no blanks10 each, 2 in the kitty6012 doubles x 2, tricks score 050
80442, no blanks10 each, 2 in the kitty6010 tricks x 260
8044410 each, 4 in the kitty6010 tricks x 250
80446, keeps the 0-0s and 5-0s10 each, 4 in the kitty, 2 unused7010 tricks x 160
796569 each, 2 in the kitty709 tricks x 150
74644, keeps the 0-0s7 each, 2 in the kitty607 tricks x 245
72442, no blanks10 each, 2 in the widownot broken down40
Seventy (70)442, no blanks10 each, 2 in the widow6010 tricks x 140
9255611 each, 1 in the kitty7011 tricks x 265

The rows come from Puremco's rules, Keith Mack, Howard Fosdick, Pagat (with reports from Evelyn Walton, Joyce Talbott, Jay Long, and LaNell Ressmann), the Sun City Texas club rules, Wikipedia, and texas42.net. The three 80s are, in order, Fosdick's, Talbott's, and Long's. Links are under Sources.

Where the Sources Disagree

Two-set arithmetic trips up careful writers too. Fosdick's table lists a six-player 84 with 9 tricks worth 2 points each and says 84 points are winnable. That adds up to 88, and every other detail in the row matches his row for 88. Keith Mack's book and the Sun City club rules both reach 84 with six players another way: tricks score nothing, and each of the 14 doubles scores a point.

Pagat's description of Joyce Talbott's 80 says "all the doubles are removed except for the double blanks." Its own numbers point elsewhere: a 44-tile set, no 5-0s, and a bidding code built around holding doubles all fit a set with the blanks removed except the two 0-0s. We read it as a slip, but it is the page's wording, not ours.

The Paper Trail

As far as we can find, the two-set games were written down late, and mostly as rule sheets rather than as history.

Puremco's rule sheets. Puremco, short for Purvis Reeves Manufacturing Company, was founded in Waco in 1954. In 2000 the Austin Chronicle called it the last domino factory in the United States. Its domino sets came with printed rules. The eight-page leaflet on texas42.net carries no date (Proft suspects the early 1980s) and covers 42 only. Its answer for eight players is two tables, not two sets.

1999. The earliest dated two-set text we have found is a copy of Puremco's rules on a University of Utah web page, captured by the Internet Archive on April 29, 1999. It follows the leaflet's 42 rules almost word for word, adds a section titled "Rules of Play for 88," and ends by crediting the rules to sheets "included in domino sets manufactured by Puremco Manufacturing, located in Waco, Texas." texas42.net links to it as Richardson's archived rules.

Its 88 is the baseline later sources build on. Six players form two teams of three in alternating seats. Each draws nine, leaving two in the kitty. Bids go 60, 62, 64 and up to 88, then in multiples of 88, and each bid names the trump suit the bidder wants, which the bidder must hold at least one tile of. The high bidder may swap tiles with the kitty but must replace any count in it with non-count tiles. Tricks are worth 2 points, the game goes to 500 points or 7 marks, and "there is no Nel-O, Plunge, or Forced Bidding." When identical tiles tie, "the first of the identical dominoes to be played is considered the winner."

2001 on Pagat. John McLeod's Pagat site began its page with a description of six-player 88 contributed by Joe Celko "on the basis of rule sheets included in domino sets manufactured by Puremco." McLeod has since revised and expanded it with reports from Joyce Talbott, Evelyn Walton, LaNell Ressmann, and Jay Long. The page is copyrighted 2001 by Celko and 2026 by McLeod, and was last updated September 2, 2026.

Reader questions on texas42.net. Paul Proft's FAQ answers several two-set questions. One explains that "six-handed 42 is called 88" and uses two sets of double-six dominoes. Another, asking which tiles to leave out for six-player 84 or 88, answers that all the dominoes are used. A 2015 reply from a contributor in Amarillo describes a five-player game called 92.

Books and summaries. Keith Mack's Texas 42: State Domino Game, How to Play, How to Win (revised edition) prints Eighty-Eight, Eighty-Four for eight or six players, and Seventy among its scoring variations, on pages 94 to 97. Fosdick's "42 and Variations," an archive copy of a cardsanddominoes.com page last updated in 2018, tabulates 80, 88, 79, and two versions of 84. Wikipedia's article on 42 lists 84, 88, and 72 among its variations, with no sources cited for them.

Back to Four Chairs

Two sets also work at a four-player table once the blanks come out. Removing all 14 tiles with a blank leaves 42: ten for each player and two for a kitty, with 60 points of count. Each group then decides what tricks and doubles are worth. Mack's Seventy scores a point a trick for 70, with bidding from 40. Fosdick's 80 scores 2 a trick, with bidding from 60. Wikipedia's 72 opens at 40 without saying how the points add up. Four-player 84 scores nothing for tricks and 2 points for each of the 12 doubles.

The clearest record of four-player 84 comes from the Sun City Texas Community Association in Georgetown. Its public club rules page, "Dominos: Texas 84," covers four players (no blanks, ten tiles each, two in the boneyard, bidding from 50, each double worth 2 points, 84 in all) and six players (blanks in, nine tiles each, each double worth 1 point). The page carries no date. The January 2013 issue of SunRays, the community's magazine, lists "Dominoes 42 and 84" three times a week in the Dominoes & Table Games club schedule and tells 42 players that "although the rules are slightly different, Domino 42 players can easily learn to play Dominoes 84."

Table Talk and Local Rules

First played wins. Every two-set rule set we have read that covers ties agrees: when both copies of a tile fall on the same trick, the first one played ranks higher. Proft's FAQ puts it this way for 88: "the first one played is deemed the higher of the two."

Pistol. Wikipedia says that in 84, players bid "pistol" instead of "nello." It gives no source, and we have not found the word in any other two-set rule set.

Bidding by code. Joyce Talbott's 80 comes with suggested bid meanings, so a partner can read a hand from the number: 50 for a long suit with no double, 54 for one double and three trumps, 60 for two doubles, 59 for "partner go marks." In a Follow Me bid, the second digit names the double held, so 65 Follow Me shows both 5-5s.

West Texas 80. Jay Long's version lets the bidder discard count, but on bids under 80 the discarded points are added to the bid as well. Taking more points than you bid earns "bags," and ten bags cost 100 points, a penalty Pagat calls "almost certainly borrowed" from the card game Spades. The top bid, Solo, is always worth 360: the bidder's partner lays their tiles face down and the bidder tries to win every trick alone.

Special contracts. Evelyn Walton reports that some groups let a player who bids 88 or more play Follow Me, Nello, or Sevens instead of naming trump, and describes the eight-player 84 that scores a point per double instead of per trick.

Amarillo 92. In the five-player game, the high bidder finds a partner for the hand by asking for a domino ("I need double six"), and the player holding it says yes. If the pair makes the bid, each scores a mark; if not, each of the other three does.

What Remains Unknown

Gaps in the record:

Sources

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