Last month we teased a mobile app and partnership bidding. Both are live now. On top of that, there is Lead Gym, free opening-lead practice, and a batch of simulation upgrades that make it easier to ask the right question and dig into the answer. Here is everything new.
The App Is Live
BridgeDummy is on Google Play. Puzzles, the daily challenge, your ELO and streak, Lead Gym, Puzzle Rush: it all works on your phone as a proper app, not a browser tab you keep losing.
If you have been using the site on your phone's browser, the app is the same thing but faster and more reliable. If you have not tried BridgeDummy on the go before, this is a good reason to start.
TipiOS is in the works and coming soon. Android users can download the app from Google Play right now.
Lead Gym: Every Card Scored
A normal lead puzzle is one hand-picked board. It scores every card in your hand across many layouts, gives you a star rating, and records the result: it counts toward your ELO and streak, and you can see how your lead compares with everyone else who tried the same board. Lead Gym keeps that same card-by-card double-dummy scoring but changes everything around it.
Four bots bid a random deal in the system you choose, you make your lead, and you get the same kind of table: all 13 cards in your hand scored across up to 50 layouts consistent with the bidding, each with a defeat rate and an average trick count, plus your star rating. The difference is the setting. The deals are random and unlimited instead of curated, and nothing is recorded: no ELO, no streak, no scoreboard. It is open practice rather than a graded puzzle.
Best of all, it is completely free. No diamonds, no subscription. Everything runs in your browser, and the next board loads in the background, so there is almost no wait between hands.
You can filter for the kinds of boards you want to work on: contract level, strain, competitive or silent auctions, vulnerability, HCP range, and shape. If you keep dropping tricks on leads against slams, spend a session doing nothing else. Five bidding systems are supported: 2/1, SAYC, Acol, Precision, and Polish.
TipLead Gym is free for all users. No diamonds, no subscription required.
Bidding With Your Partner (and By Yourself)
In July we said we were building a way to bid with your actual partner. It is live now under Bidding Challenges.
Invite your partner (costs 8 diamonds for the creator, free for the partner), and each of you sees only your own hand. You bid eight boards whenever you have a spare minute, and neither of you needs to be online at the same time. Every board has its own chat, so when the auction goes somewhere unexpected you can talk about it right next to the hands.
After each board, see how your contract ranks against the alternatives across simulated layouts, scored by IMPs. You get stars, your average score, and a table showing how every reachable contract would have done.
There is also a solo Bidding Gym mode (free, unlimited deals): random deals with three bot opponents, the same double-dummy scoring, and a 20-deal adaptive evaluation that re-deals opponents to match their bids. Good for warming up or working through hands on your own.
Simulation Upgrades
The simulation engine got a round of upgrades that make it easier to set up the question you want to ask and then dig into what happened:
- Board filtering: after a simulation runs, filter the results by outcome, contract, or score to find the boards that matter, and inspect sample deals from any slice.
- Advanced constraints: specify losers, controls, quick tricks, honor count, and exact shape patterns, not just HCP and suit length.
- Auction inference: paste a bidding sequence and the engine figures out the hand constraints from it, filling in the constraint editor for you.
- Shareable links: generate a link to share your simulation setup and summary with someone else.
Set up a tighter question, filter for what went wrong, and share the result.
If you have ideas for what we should build next, the contact page is always open.