How to keep score at Call Break

Call Break is scored by the call. A player who takes at least as many tricks as they called scores the call, plus a tenth for every trick over it. A player who takes fewer loses the call. Over five deals that is a lot of tenths to add up in your head, and this does it.

It needs no account and no signal. The score is kept on this phone, so it survives the screen going dark between deals, and the page opens again where you left it.

1. Write in everybody’s name in the order you sit, going the way the deal passes.
2. Tap Deals beside whoever deals first, or press Pick a dealer and let the phone choose.
3. Set the house rules your table plays, then press Start. The phone remembers the names and the rules for next time.

Four is the game. At five, take two twos out of the pack and deal ten each. At six, take four twos out and deal eight each. The scorekeeper knows how many tricks a deal has at each size and checks the tricks add up to it.

Press Next deal and write in every call. If you want the calls on the board while the cards are played, press Save the bids for now, and come back with Finish deal when the last trick is taken.

Then write in the tricks each player took. The deal saves only once they add up to the deck: thirteen at four players.

A call of three that takes three scores 3. Taking four scores 3.1, and five scores 3.2. A call of three that takes two scores minus 3.

The totals are kept to a tenth, and the player with the most at the end of the last deal wins. Two level at the top share it.

The arithmetic is the code the Call Break tables in this app score with, so the scorekeeper and the game always agree.

Deals in a game

Five is usual. Choose No set end to play on.

Highest bid

Eight is the usual top, so nobody calls the whole hand. Thirteen lets anyone call anything.

Extra tricks

Most tables count a tenth for every trick over the call. Some count nothing for them.

Share board makes a link and a QR code. Everybody who opens it watches the board change as you save each deal, with no account on either side. With no signal it gives a link that carries the board inside it instead, which shows the score as it stood when the link was made.

Send a picture of the board draws the standings and every deal as an image for the family group, with the address in the corner. It needs no signal.

If you have to leave before the game ends, Hand over scoring shows a second code. Whoever scans it keeps score on their own phone from then on.

Pick a dealer chooses who deals first, and from then on the scorekeeper says whose deal it is above every deal. Shuffle seats puts the names in a new order to sit in.

Both draw from the phone’s own random number generator, the one the dice roller uses, so every seat is equally likely.