Gin Rummy Express

Gin Rummy Express deals gin rummy to two phones in the same room, or to one phone and a bot. One phone hosts, the other joins — over Wi-Fi, over Bluetooth, or through Google Nearby — and nobody sits in the middle.

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. A game against a bot needs no second phone.

THE GAME, IN FULL
• One deck of 52, ten cards each, and the twenty-first turned up: take it or pass
• On your turn, draw from the stock or take the top of the discard pile, then put one card down
• Meld runs of three or more in a suit and sets of three or four of a rank; the ace is low, A-2-3 and never Q-K-A
• Deadwood is every card in no meld: an ace 1, a picture card 10, the rest their number
• Knock with ten or less, and the other player lays off what they can on your melds
• Undercut the knocker, go gin with no deadwood at all, or big gin with all eleven melded
• Both hands are laid out the way a careful player would, so nobody is charged for a worse arrangement than their own
• Two cards left in the stock and no knock: the hand is void and the same dealer deals again
• Play to 100, 150, 200 or 250, with a box for each hand won, the game bonus, and a shutout doubled
• American bonuses or Pagat's, big gin on or off, and Oklahoma Gin, where the upcard sets the knock limit and a spade doubles the hand

NOBODY TO PLAY? SEAT A BOT
A bot is a player with no phone, so a game needs nobody but you. Give it a memory dial from 0 to 100: the chance, each turn, that it studies what you have been taking from the pile rather than looking only at its own hand. It takes a card only when it goes straight into a meld, knocks the moment it can, and when it is paying attention it holds on to the card it can see you want.

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 and grouped into melds as you draw, and a Hide button for when somebody leans over
• Your deadwood counted on every discard against the knock limit, and Knock offered only where it would stand
• A log of every draw, discard and knock, 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
• The next hand dealt on a clock, or held until both of you have seen the last one

NO MONEY, EVER
Nothing to buy, nothing to cash out, no chips, no betting, 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.