TD at 10,000 feet
Introduction
Tournament Director (TD) is an application developed for Android mobile devices to assist tournament directors of poker tournaments in the management of their events.
The application (app) keeps track of player registrations, entry fees paid, side pot registrations such as Last Man Standing (LMS), table balancing, final finishing positions and re-entries.
TD can assist in the uploading of final finishing positions to nationwide poker leagues such as ‘NUTS’ and ‘Redtooth’ leagues.
Planned future enhancements are included in this document but will be prioritized according to user feedback.
This document lists the functionality of the application. It does not specify what should be tested but forms the basis of what a test specification should be developed from.
Requirements Specifications
TD has been designed to target Android SDK 35 and a minimum SDK 31. The backwards compatibility of Android means that mobile devices with lower levels of operating system may exhibit reduced performance. If this is the case then the developer will consider revising these targets.
The baseline version for testing is Beta 1.3.0. Any earlier version should not be used. Later versions fix issues highlighted in testing.
The application version number can be found in the option menu > About TD by scrolling down to the end of the text.
Limitations
TD is not designed to work on the IOS or Windows operating systems.
Context
Small scale poker tournaments are played in pubs and social clubs across the country. Many are hosted under the rules of a national league such as Redtooth or NUTS leagues. The person who runs the game on any one day is known as the Tournament Director (TD). This person is responsible for keeping track of who has registered to play, who still has to pay their entry fee, on which table people should sit amongst many other things. In large tournaments run in casinos this is managed by sophisticated applications beyond the price point of the smaller scale games.
This app provides guidance and assistance at this level but ultimately, the tournament director should have the capability to override the app.
Functionality
Home Page
The TD home page looks as follows.
The title displays “TD’s Home Page” and in the top right corner is the link to the “Options Menu” (3 vertical dots) as described below.
In the bottom right corner is a ‘floating action button’ (FAB) with a ‘+’ in it. This creates a new game as described below.
The majority of the screen shows a list of cards, one for each of the games recorded on this device. If this list extends beyond the bottom of the page then it can be scrolled up to get to older games.
Tapping on one of the game cards brings up the Registration Page for that game.
The Options Menu (3 dots vertically arranged to the top right of the screen)
Financial Summary
This option is only visible during a game but given the options chosen and the costs collected this page then shows a summary of monies collected and payouts predicted.
Payouts are calculated according to the Payout Structure chosen during the Game creation.
Settings
- No balancing at reg. : This option enables you to turn off table balancing during the registration phase. Some TD’s prefer to get everyone registered before balancing the tables.
- Sort Games by Date : This option sorts the games on the home screen by the date of the game rather than the date that the game was created in TD.
Manage Player List
Opens a window with the complete list of players maintained by TD. Tapping on an entry enables the user to edit the entry.
Advanced
- db import: (subscribers only) import a database into TD. This might be a backup of the database that you have taken previously or a database from another TD. Note that after a successful import you will need to close down TD and re-open it again to see the new data.
- db export: (subscribers only) export the database into the downloads fold of your device. Note that if a database file exists from a previous export then thisexport will fail. Rename or move the offending file and try again.
- Delete Games: (subscribers only) You can delete games from the home screen to keep your list tidy.
RR force current table
It can be frustrating when entrants want to sit on specific tables especially if you use Round Robin mode because it puts the whole order of entrants out. This option allows to to force the Round Robin mode to continue from a specific table.
blinds Structures editor
You get 3 blinds structure with TD but if you are a subscriber you can create as many as you want to attach to your games.
Payout Structures editor
Calculating payouts is a big subject so gets its own section below. Editing the structures is a subscriber only feature.
About TD
Opens a window with some basic instructions in the use of TD.
The software version number of TD is displayed at the bottom of this screen.
If you haven’t subscribed already then there’s a button here to help you.
The New Game Floating Action Button
Tapping the New Game button brings up a screen of game details as follows.
The user fills in a name for the game (usually the name of the venue)
The date defaults to today’s date but can be changed using the date picker.
Default table size is used by TD to determine when a new table is needed during the registration phase. It is also used to determine when a table needs to be ‘broken’ and players distributed around other tables during the elimination phase.
Three table fill algorithms are provided:
- Minimum Tables: TD will attempt to fill a table (to the default table size), starting at table 1, before creating a new table.
- Round Robin: TD will fill tables in cyclic manner. If there are defined to be 4 tables at the start then players will be assigned to A > B > C > D > A… as they register.
- Random: Players are assigned randomly to tables, within the scope of the number of tables at the start, as they register.
The tournament director should decide if his game includes a Last Man Standing (LMS) side-pot. If the ‘Include LMS’ box is checked then other screens will display information about the players remaining in the LMS.
The same can be said for add-ons. Does your game allow people to add-on chips to their stack?
Number of Tables at Start is used in the Round Robin and Random table fill algorithms as described above.
Options chosen determine which financial data needs to be collected such as the cost of the add-on.
Note: If you are a subscriber then a long tap on any of the games shown on the home screen will duplicate that game. This makes it easy to create a game for ‘this week’ when you play regularly. It does not copy the registrants to the newly created game.
Registration Page
The general layout of the Registration Page is shown in the picture. Towards the top of the view is a set of summary information about the game.
At the bottom of this page is a navigation bar to enable fast switching between the Registration Page, the Elimination Page, the Tables View Page, the Home Page and the Poker Timer.
The edit button can be used to change the game details at any time.
The number of tables in play is shown along with the number of entries into the tournament. Note that the number of entries may be greater than the number of players as players may have re-entered after being eliminated. Multiple entries are shown by a number in brackets after a players name.
Adding a player to the list of players is achieved by tapping the “Pick or Type Name” drop down.
On first use this list will, of course, be empty. Choose ‘New Player’ and then tap the “+” button. Fill in the details of the player. You must fill in at least one of the forename, surname or nickname fields. A nickname will be filled in for you if you choose only to fill in the forename or surname (or both). Once added the details can be edited (using the options menu above) but not deleted.
Once you have the player details recorded the name will appear in this list next time you select the “Pick or Type Name” box and henceforth the user can choose a player by name or start typing a name to filter the list of names.
Once the name has been chosen the user must tap the “+” button to add the player to the list of registered players for this game.
If a player is selected who is already included in the list of players then an additional button “X” appears. This can be used to remove the player from the list. Note that this is not the same as eliminating a player. When removed from the list in this way the player is deemed not to have played, is not included in the count of entries and will not be given a finishing position.
Re-entry: If the user selects a player who has already been eliminated then tapping the “+” button will re-enter the player. This will increase the Entries count.
If LMS is included in the tournament then each player card will also contain a checkbox for the LMS entry to track the players in the LMS side pot.
The Registration Paid check box is used to track if a player has paid the entry fee.
The box to the top right of the player card indicates which table the player has been allocated. The colour of that box indicates if that table is ‘balanced’. Green is balanced. Amber is short of players. Red means that table has too many players. Tapping on this box enables the user to edit the table number.
Note: most tournament directors will leave tables unbalanced during registration, especially if they use the Round Robin or Random algorithm until they are ready to start the game but also frequently move players around the tables at will.
Elimination Page
General layout of the Elimination Page is shown in the picture.
The number of tables in play is shown at the top along with the number of players still in the tournament.
Each player card shows the table number of that player and the position that player finished if they have been eliminated,
The background colour of the table number illustrate the table status as in the registration page,
A table number of zero indicates the player has been eliminated.
Tapping a table number allows the user to change it and the tables will rebalance automatically.
Tap anywhere on the player card besides the table number to eliminate the player. The user is given a few seconds to confirm the elimination by tapping the ‘Yes’ that appears at the bottom of the screen. If the user does nothing the app continues without eliminating the player.
Timer Page
The poker timer is self-explanatory. It follows the blinds structure of the active game. You can start, pause, skip forwards and backwards as well as moving a slider to add or subtract time at will.
The timer plays a sound at the end of each level and uses the ‘media player’ to do so, hence you can set the volume using that tool.
And yes, the timer does keep running when you switch screens to eliminate someone so remember to pause it if you have to break a table.
Table Page
The Table Page provides a convenient summary of the tables and their status. The heading of each table shows the number of the table, the number of players on that table and the colour indicates the status of the table.
If the user taps on a table a screen is presented with just the players on that table. This facilitates moving a number of players to other tables when breaking a table as well as the usual process of moving one player to keep the tables balanced.
blind structure tables (subscriber feature)
3 Blind Structures are provided with TD but with subscriber access these can be customised to meet the specific requirements of your game.
Payouts tables (subscriber feature)
Many payout structures can be created and stored in T.D. The chosen structure for the current game is selected during the New Game creation (or when editting a game).
A new install of TD comes with 3 template structures. The can be edited and saved as a new name.
Each payout structure has a ’rounding’ value that causes the calculated winnings to be rounded to whole values.
The structure consists of a series of rows of data. Each row starts with the number of entrants that this row pertains to then a series of percentages of payouts for 1stm 2nd, 3rd place etc.
So for example if your game pays 3 places when upto 20 entrants turn up but 4 places when 30 turn up you would have 2 rows as follows:
20: 50,30,20
30: 45,30,20,5
You can see the structures just by tapping on them in the list.
The Payout Structures page also has an automated feature to create a structure mathematically. Type in a name, the maximum number of players you expect and the percentage of those entrants that should be paid then chose an Alpha. This number determines how steep or top-heavy the payout will be. Online MTT’s tend to be around 1.3 or 1.6 but pub games are more likely 20 or 30. You will just have to experiment but it might speed up the creation of a structure that you then customise later.
Future Enhancements
The following list of features are under consideration:
Porting to IOS and Windows operating systems
Inclusion of calculations for deals based around ICM calculations.
Integration with national league hosts to enable ‘one click’ upload of results.
Integration of the ‘player list’ with the mobile device’s contacts database.