Poker Express is no-limit Texas hold'em for two to eight players on their own phones. Blinds, two cards each, four rounds of betting and a showdown - and chips that are only ever part of the game.
About Poker Express
Poker Express is a home game for the table you are already sitting at. One phone hosts, the others join with a short code, and the phones talk to each other rather than to the internet: no account, no server, and nothing that looks like a casino. The chips are points. There is no way to buy them and no way to cash them out.
The deal moves one seat a hand. The seat after the dealer puts in the small blind, half the big blind, and the seat after that the big blind; heads-up, the dealer is the small blind. Two cards each, face down. On your turn you fold, check when nothing is owed, call, or bet or raise - a first bet is at least the big blind, and a raise adds at least as much as the last raise added. Anything can be all in. Then the flop, the turn and the river, each with its own round of betting.
At the showdown each hand plays its best five of seven, ranked the usual way from straight flush down to high card, with A-2-3-4-5 the lowest straight and suits never breaking a tie. A player who is all in can only win from each other player what they put in, so the chips are cut into a main pot and side pots; tied hands split, and an odd chip goes to the first winner after the dealer. A game ends when one player has every chip.
Your cards stay yours. The host's phone has to judge the showdown, so it holds the deal - but a guest is sent only its own two cards, marked with the number of the deal, and nobody else's cards leave the host until a showdown turns them up.
Made for the journey
- No internet, no mobile data. The phones talk to each other directly, so a game carries on through tunnels, ghats and stretches with no signal at all.
- Everyone on their own phone. Nobody passes a handset round the compartment, and nobody sees a hand that is not theirs.
- Short of players? Bots take the empty seats, each with a setting for how closely it follows the play.
- A dropped link is not the end of the hand. A phone that loses the connection can join the same table again.
- No sign-in and no real money. Install it, open it, play.
How playing together works, and tips for trains, buses and flights
Features
- No-limit Texas hold'em for 2 to 8 players
- Blinds, the flop, the turn and the river, with a full round of betting on each
- Fold, check, call, bet and raise, sized with a stepper or the Least, Pot and All in shortcuts
- Main pot and side pots when somebody is all in, with split pots settled to the chip
- Host settings: seats, the big blind and the starting chips
- Your two cards full-screen, with the board, the pot and every move beside them
- A phone that restarts mid-hand comes back to its seat and its cards
- Bots that rate their cards, weigh a call against the pot, and fill any empty seat
- Connects over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Google Nearby, with no internet
- No real money: chips cannot be bought, won or cashed out