Bridge Express

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.