Bridge Express

Nessaid Android

Contains ads

About this game

Bridge Express deals contract bridge to the four phones around the table. Two pairs, partners opposite each other, and nobody in the middle: one phone hosts, the rest join — over Wi-Fi, over Bluetooth, or through Google Nearby.

NOTHING LEAVES THE ROOM
There is no server, no account and no sign-in. The phones talk to each other directly, and a hand exists only on the phones playing it. Bluetooth needs no network at all, which means a train, a power cut or a holiday house with no signal is still a table.

THE GAME, IN FULL
• A full pack of 52, thirteen cards each, the ace high
• The auction: pass, bid, double or redouble, from the dealer round the table until three passes close it
• A bidding box that offers only what the auction would accept — the lowest bid that stands, and Double or Redouble only when they are legal
• The last bid is the contract, and the player who first named its strain is the declarer
• With the opening lead on the table, dummy's hand is laid face up on every phone, and the declarer plays both hands from their own
• Follow suit if you can; the highest trump takes the trick, or the highest card of the suit led
• Scored deal by deal, the Chicago way: trick score, the part-score or game bonus, the slam bonuses, the insult, overtricks and the full undertrick table
• Vulnerability rotates over each four deals, or can be switched off
• Four passes throw the hand in, and the same dealer deals again
• A game is four deals unless the table chooses from one to sixteen, and the higher side wins

SHORT OF A FOURTH? SEAT A BOT
A bot is a player with no phone, and bridge needs four, so this is what makes a game possible when only two or three of you are free. Seat one, two or three, and give each a memory dial from 0 to 100: the chance, each turn, that it works out from the cards already played what is left, rather than looking only at its own hand. A bot bids a plain natural system — points, a five-card major, a fit raised, game when the two hands add up — and plays by the maxims: second hand low, third hand high, win the trick as cheaply as it can, ruff when it cannot follow, and as declarer draw trumps first.

BUILT FOR A REAL TABLE
• A code the host reads out, mixed into the handshake, so being in range is not the same as being invited
• A phone that drops out can come back and take its seat again
• Your hand, held full-screen in two rows or one, and a Hide button for when somebody leans over
• Every trick can be held up until all four have seen it, so nobody misses what was played
• The whole auction and every trick, reviewed at the end of the hand, and a log in plain words
• 33 languages, and the cards stay left to right in right-to-left ones
• Share a win: an "I won!" card with the final table, sent wherever you choose
• When a phone loses touch, the host chooses: wait for them, or drop them and play on

NO MONEY, EVER
Nothing to buy, nothing to cash out, no real-money play of any kind. The scores are scores. The game is free and shows ads, never on the table while a hand is being played.

What’s new

First release.

• Contract bridge for four phones in two pairs
• Over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or Google Nearby — no server, no account, no sign-in
• The full auction: bid, pass, double, redouble; dummy face up; the declarer plays both hands
• Scored deal by deal the Chicago way, vulnerability rotating
• Bots to fill a short table — which is what makes a game of four possible
• 33 languages, and a Share button on the winning screen