Are there any free bridge web sites or apps that would allow me to create the hands I see in bridge books so I can practice them?
by Alex J. Coyne © Great Bridge Links
June 2026
“Are there any free bridge web sites or apps that would allow me to create the hands I see in bridge books so I can practice them?” – question posed on r/bridge
Bridge hands are one of the most exciting parts of the game. Hands are shared and discussed with just as much enthusiasm as chess moves, and can be unpacked move-by-move in much the same way. Both players and teachers find certain bridge hands interesting, and hands are often a great teaching experience. After bridge games at the club or local tournament. players can often be found at the local pub going over the hands – this is universally known as the ‘post mortem’
But where can you input customized bridge hands (for example, that you might have seen in a bridge handbook or online) – and challenge yourself to play them?
Some bridge websites like Bridge Base Online will allow hands (.LIN or .PBN files) to be imported, while other websites like AlwaysBridge and BridgeDealer allows hands to be created and exported.
Hands are a great way to learn, improve, and generally explore what you can do with a specific bridge hand.
Here’s where to get your game on!
Inside Bridge Base Online is found what’s called the Deal Generator, and it does exactly what the name tells you it does: the BBO Deal Generator allows players to create (as well as import and export) their own bridge hands.
Deals can be shared with other players, or played through with other people or bots.
Here’s how to use the Deal Manager according to the BBO Manual.
Bridge Base Online, which is part of the larger 52 Entertainment brand along with Bridge.com, has more bridge goodies for learning and improving bridge players.
BBO Helper is a Browser Extension – and it’s one more way to analyze bridge right in your browser.
For Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/bbo-helper/
For Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bbo-helper/
AlwaysBridge is “a free online bridge hand generator” with no download, installation or setup needed.
This is perfect for players and tournament directors. According to the description, it’s the perfect way to generate and preview (as well as import and export) your customized bridge hands.
Find it at AlwaysBridge.com.
If you’re looking for an all-round bridge playing platform that has hand-creation as an added feature, players on /r/bridge have recommended Bridge by NeuralPlay.
Once you’ve built or imported your bridge hand, you can play it against human (or AI) opponents.
The BridgeDealer app was build with bridge hands in mind; available on the App Store you can use BridgeDealer to import and export .PBN bridge hands. The app also has the added feature of “reading hand-shuffled board(s) into a PBN file.” Ooh, techy!
Bridge Deal Manager is the only paid tool on this list. If you’re in the market for a professional solution (perhaps as a tournament director, club, or teacher) have a look at BridgeDealManager.co.uk.
Bridge, Out Ahead can be found at BridgeOutAhead – simply put, it was designed by a fellow bridge player to make learning (and playing) easier.
There are several cool things to be found on this website: a simple card counting game (here), a bridge cookbook, and a convention card tour cookbook.
There’s also the Bridge Deal feature, which does exactly what you need it to: create and export bridge hands for you. Find their Bridge Deal feature here.
The (very kind!) John Webber programmed this free bridge analyzer tool at his website. According to his bio, he was born in Seattle – though later moved to Germany and recently took up bridge after playing in his youth.
BridgeChamp is a full-featured bridge experience that allows live bridge playing against real players and bots. We’re written about Bridge Champ before at this link – and like BBO, players can create or import their own bridge hands into the system. Bridge Champ has been a past supporter of Great Bridge Links, the bridge community’s favourite website, so they have a special place in our hearts.
Here’s a video about creating your own hands on BridgeChamp.
“aaBridge is a FREE bridge (card game) play and study program for Win, Mac and Linux.” says its description and you can find it over at this link.
Dig around on his website a little, and you’ll find other goodies from RogerPF like AlertHelper.
