I have been playing this game for some time now. The graphics are large and easy to see on my tablet. I also appreciate that the trump dominoes are highlighted in white. I agree with everyone that the dumb ai partner is really dumb. The partner has made me lose many rounds that we easily should have won. I just purchased the “smart partner” and “difficulty” increase settings today. Will see if that makes a difference. One thing I did notice though, is on the game each individual upgrade feature ranges from $.99 to $1.99. Yet the purchase came through as $2.13…..why is that? Did I miss something like a price increase?Just an update to my original message. The price difference was tax. The smart partner setting helps in play, however the partner is so smart that it passes ever single bid unless it can go for 36. So now I find myself bidding more. The difficulty settings change how your opponents bid. If you put it on hard then it seems the opponents rarely bid at all unless they can win with a 32-42 bid. So I keep the setting on normal. Still enjoy playing. Wish you could play with friends as an option.

As a long-time player of 42, I know all the rules for 42. The main flaw is how the AI computes the scores. I just finished a hand and the AI recorded the last trick to my opponent. By doing this, I lost that hand. I had the bid. Trumps are gone. Last trick I played a double blank, my opponent played a double 4, my partner followed the suit, and the last player (my opponent) played a 6-4. Up until this last trick--not set. By my calculation, my double was a walker and I won the points. My game should have been recorded as a win. I went into detail to show this app will make such recording errors regularly. Also, in the stated rules shown in their menu, it is stated that doubles can be a suit of their own in nello. I wish the game creaters would add this as an option to the game. Such an option gives the players more possibilities in bidding. I've played nello with this option for many years--more fun. Otherwise, I enjoy this app. Finally, I wish there were more app choices for Texas 42 for us 42 players to choose from.

Game is good except for one big problem. Even though I paid for a “smart” partner and challenging competition, I don’t feel like I got that. Partner and opponents continually make rookie mistakes. Partner doesn’t seem to be able to recognize when he and I have all the trumps (or all of any suit), and doesn’t seem to have the ability to utilize the strategy of holding on to a trump to catch count that opponents are holding on to. When we both have all the trumps, he will play all of his trumps, even when he has other doubles in his hand, pulling all of the trumps out of my hand, and often causing us to lose the hand. Very frustrating. He and opponents also sometimes fail to play count when it’s obvious, or likely, that their partner is going to win that hand. Also sometimes fail to play a double when they should to win an important hand. Also very frustrating. In spite of these, I still play it. It has pretty good overall functionality. Just EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING when “smart” partner repeatedly makes stupid plays.

Two main issues, first, when the computer is forced to take the bid, it often just chooses blanks. It seems it would be easy to at least just set it to make trump the suit the computer has the most of. I’ve actually had it make trump blanks multiple times and it didn’t even have a blank. Second, the computer will play trump as long all the trumps are not in. So, if the computer and its partner are the only ones with trumps it will pull the trumps from the partner. This almost never happens. Other minor issues: sometimes the computer should be able to tell it’s partner is going to win a trick and thus play count. Sometimes it doesn’t. When the computer goes low, it struggles determining which domino to slough. For example, it will often slough a double blank, when there is no way the opponents could lead to the double blank. Having said all this it is still fun and there just are not that many 42 apps available.