Every day 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 town.
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 Aussie 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. But inevitably we grew bored with cribbage.
As we have come to know… boredom, desperation and/or freelancing from home, are each (or in combination) 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” when there are enough people to play, but we choose “42” an average of 9 times out of 10 when it comes down to what to play. If you like card games with bidding and tricks, we suspect you might love this card-game-with-a-twist 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.
Claudia & Jim