Play rubber bridge online, free
This page deals you a hand and plays a full rubber. You sit South; three robots
take the other seats. There is an auction — a real one, in
American Standard 2/1 or ACOL, with about thirteen
convention switches you can set — and then thirteen tricks, and then the score.
Nothing is simplified for the browser. It is the same game as the
iPhone and iPad app, running the same engine.
Scored the traditional way
Above and below the line, the way rubber bridge is actually kept: only the tricks
you contracted for go below, 100 wins a game, and two games win the rubber. Honours,
part-scores carried between deals, the insult, and the unfinished-rubber premiums are
all there. How rubber bridge scoring works explains the
pad in full, with a rubber worked through deal by deal.
Every bid and every card, graded
When the hand is over, a double-dummy solver looks at all four hands and works out
what was available. It grades the auction against what the cards were worth, and the
play trick by trick — charging you only for the tricks you were responsible for, never
your partner's. The solver runs on your own machine, not on a server.
A hand from a book, as well
Besides the rubber there is Diagrams:
set up a deal from a book, a newspaper column or a club's hand record, and play that
one against the robots. Type the four hands in, or paste a PBN or LIN deal or a BBO
handviewer link. Any hand the diagram does not print can be dealt at random, or dealt
to fit the auction it did print. Reading a diagram from a photograph is on the iPhone
and iPad app only; everything else here works in this browser.
No account, and nothing sent anywhere
There is no sign-up, no email, and no server keeping your hands. The rubber, the
settings and the archive live in this browser and go no further.
If you are learning
The free rubber bridge guide is 71 sections written
for people who want to play properly rather than be told the game is easy:
- Getting started — your first deal, and what you are looking at
- The rules — the deal, the auction, the play, doubles and vulnerability
- Scoring — the line, the bonuses, the penalties, a worked rubber
- Bidding — valuation, openings, responses and the conventions
- Card play and technique — planning, finesses, safety plays, defence
- How the robots work — including, honestly, where they are weak