Once you've got the plain game down, there are some fancier things you can call when you win the bid. I'll tell you how we play them at our domino hall. Now I want to be honest with you: these are the rules where every table in Texas has its own ideas, and every one of them is sure it's right. If you sit down somewhere new, ask before you call anything fancy. Asking is free. Arguing after is not.

Instead of naming a number, you name the doubles. Then the seven doubles are a suit all their own, and they're trumps, from the [6|6] at the top down to the [0|0] at the bottom. If a double is led, you have to follow with a double if you've got one. Every other domino just belongs to its high end like usual.

Call this when you're holding four or five doubles and not much of anything else. It's a fine bid. My friend Ralph calls it about once a year and wins it every time, which tells you he's waiting for the right hand, which is more than I can say for some of us.

That's no trumps at all. Some folks call it just that, no trumps. The highest domino of the suit that was led takes the trick, period. The double is still highest in its suit. With nothing to trump in with, the only way to win a trick is to follow suit high.

You'd call this with a hand full of doubles and high dominoes in different suits, where you've got the top of everything but no long suit to name. It's a pretty bid when it works and a sorry one when it doesn't.

Nello is the backwards bid. You promise to lose every single trick. You have to have bid at least one mark to call it. Your partner turns his dominoes face down and sits out the hand, so it's just you against the other two, and if you take even one trick, you're set.

There are no trumps in Nello. What the doubles do is where the arguing starts. At some tables the doubles stay high in their suits, at some they're low, and at some they make a suit of their own. At our hall the doubles are a suit by themselves in Nello, so a double only has to follow a double. Settle it before the shake.

A good Nello hand is full of low dominoes, blanks and aces and deuces, with no big doubles hanging around to get stuck with. A bad Nello hand is the one you talked yourself into.

Now this is the one that gets the old men out of their chairs. If you're holding four or more doubles, you can plunge. At our hall a plunge is a bid of four marks, and I've heard of tables that let you do it for three. Here's the catch: you don't name trumps. Your partner names trumps, off his own hand, and he isn't allowed any hints from you, not a wink, not a cough. Then your team has to take all seven tricks. Drop one and you're set four marks, which is most of a game.

The idea is that with four doubles you've got the top of four suits, and your partner's sure to have something long that'll go with them. Usually that works. When it doesn't, you'll hear about it for a year.

Some tables also play a splash, which is the same thing on a smaller scale: three doubles and a smaller bid. We don't play it at the hall, but I've played it at my brother-in-law's and lived.

Count your trumps before you bid. If you're going to name a suit, you want the double and at least three more of them, or the double and two more with some other doubles to back you up. Fewer than that and you're bidding on hope. Hope is not a trump.

Count your offs. An "off" is a domino that isn't a trump and isn't a sure winner. Every off you hold is a trick the other side might take, and maybe some count with it. A hand with good trumps and three offs is a 30 bid, not a 34.

Pull the trumps. When you win the bid, lead trumps until the other side hasn't got any left. Then your doubles and high dominoes in the other suits are walkers, which means they'll win and nobody can trump them. Count the trumps as they fall. There are seven. If you lose track, you deserve what happens next.

Feed your partner the count. When your partner's winning a trick and you can't follow suit, throw him a count domino if you've got one. That's ten points you didn't have to win yourself.

Never give the other side count. When they're winning a trick, get rid of a little domino that's worth nothing. The [5|5] on the other fella's trick is a sad thing to see, and you'll see it in your sleep.

Remember where the [5|5] and [6|4] are. Those two are twenty points between them, nearly half the count. Every good player at the hall knows where both of them are by the third trick. Every bad one is surprised.

A bid tells your partner something. If your partner bid 30 and somebody else outbid him, he's telling you he's got something. If he passed, he's telling you something too. Listen to the bids. That's the only talking you're allowed to do.

Don't trump your partner's trick. I've seen it done. I've done it. Ralph has never let me forget 1984.