Alternative to Tournament Clock on the table
Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 4:36 pm
First, let me say that I LOVE this product. It's making the difference between getting severe cabin fever and having my weekly poker tournament to look forward to. Thank you, Kent, for the great work.
My ideas about the tournament clock:
I understand from reading numerous prior threads about this that space on the table is the primary issue. So I came up with a couple of approaches that get the job done without compromising the little space on the table.
1). Strictly on the server side, add automatically generated chat messages, from the admin (or dealer, or whatever) that read:
NOTE: Blinds will be going up to **/** [with a * ante] in one minute.
NOTE: Blinds are now **/**.
Same thing for breaks:
NOTE: Break will start in one minute.
(I realize there is already a message that says the break will start at the conclusion of the hand. This would be sent one minute prior to the scheduled start of the break).
I believe that implementing this would only require work on the server side and there is probably already a framework for doing this since it sends out other informative messages.
ON THE CLIENT SIDE
Add an option for "Display Tournament Clock" in the client which would launch a second client which would be JUST the tournament clock. I agree with prior posts that it should include all of the following information:
Current level #, big blind, small blind and ante (if appropriate)
Time remaining in this level (count down clock)
Next big blind, small blind and ante (if appropriate)
Total elapsed play time (exclusive of breaks)
Players remaining out of # who started
Average chip stack (simply total chips in play divided by players remaining)
Next break
During breaks it would say BREAK instead of levels and the clock would count down the break.
Basically, what I'm describing above is a generic tournament clock. But if it's implemented as a separate client, launched by the existing client, it eliminates the issue of space and can be made to look like a casino tournament clock.
WHY? The other issue raised is who needs it? You can get the information from the Statistics. If the statistics were refreshed at the conclusion of each hand, that would probably suffice. But the only way to refresh is to close the window and open it again. That makes it clumsy to use for that purpose.
The ONLY gripe we've had from any of the players that have signed up to our site thus far is the absence of that information while playing. We're having a game tonight, and what I'm going to do is I've inputted the entire tournament structure (including breaks) into a poker clock program that I'm going to start simultaneously with the tournament. That way, I figure I'll be pretty much on the money as far as where I am in the tournament. But I'm not the average user. Even trying to explain that concept to non-tech-savvy players is like talking to someone in a foreign language. I've attached 3 screenshots from that program: display during a level without antes, display during a level with antes and display during a break.
In sum, I REALLY HOPE that you'll consider implementing this because your product is awesome and this is about the only area where people are comparing it less than favorably to play money private tables on commercial sites.
My ideas about the tournament clock:
I understand from reading numerous prior threads about this that space on the table is the primary issue. So I came up with a couple of approaches that get the job done without compromising the little space on the table.
1). Strictly on the server side, add automatically generated chat messages, from the admin (or dealer, or whatever) that read:
NOTE: Blinds will be going up to **/** [with a * ante] in one minute.
NOTE: Blinds are now **/**.
Same thing for breaks:
NOTE: Break will start in one minute.
(I realize there is already a message that says the break will start at the conclusion of the hand. This would be sent one minute prior to the scheduled start of the break).
I believe that implementing this would only require work on the server side and there is probably already a framework for doing this since it sends out other informative messages.
ON THE CLIENT SIDE
Add an option for "Display Tournament Clock" in the client which would launch a second client which would be JUST the tournament clock. I agree with prior posts that it should include all of the following information:
Current level #, big blind, small blind and ante (if appropriate)
Time remaining in this level (count down clock)
Next big blind, small blind and ante (if appropriate)
Total elapsed play time (exclusive of breaks)
Players remaining out of # who started
Average chip stack (simply total chips in play divided by players remaining)
Next break
During breaks it would say BREAK instead of levels and the clock would count down the break.
Basically, what I'm describing above is a generic tournament clock. But if it's implemented as a separate client, launched by the existing client, it eliminates the issue of space and can be made to look like a casino tournament clock.
WHY? The other issue raised is who needs it? You can get the information from the Statistics. If the statistics were refreshed at the conclusion of each hand, that would probably suffice. But the only way to refresh is to close the window and open it again. That makes it clumsy to use for that purpose.
The ONLY gripe we've had from any of the players that have signed up to our site thus far is the absence of that information while playing. We're having a game tonight, and what I'm going to do is I've inputted the entire tournament structure (including breaks) into a poker clock program that I'm going to start simultaneously with the tournament. That way, I figure I'll be pretty much on the money as far as where I am in the tournament. But I'm not the average user. Even trying to explain that concept to non-tech-savvy players is like talking to someone in a foreign language. I've attached 3 screenshots from that program: display during a level without antes, display during a level with antes and display during a break.
In sum, I REALLY HOPE that you'll consider implementing this because your product is awesome and this is about the only area where people are comparing it less than favorably to play money private tables on commercial sites.