Hey All,
I'm a newer user of TD, having used it for only two home based tournaments so far....
The first tourney was hosted only a few days after downloading TD and therefore the format was quite basic. I was able to identify the tremendous potential of TD right away.
For the second tournament I was excited to try implementing several ideas I had floating around since the first tournament. I've found the TD forums to be an absolute necessity; thanks to the hard work of the many TD members, I've been able to create a tournament with a polished and professional feel with not a lot of effort or technical knowledge. I have taken from many members, too many to thank individually - but I'd like to make a point of specifically thanking Hally and JediMaster, you guys have done some amazing work!! And of course a huge thanks to Corey, best program on my PC, period.
Anyways, I’m gearing up for my third Tournament; I like to make each one bigger and better then the last. So, I was hoping to get some ideas from you guys for my next event. I'd like to explain the setup of my last tourney in the hopes that I might get some suggestions for improvement. I really like trying innovative ideas and making software do stuff that it was not necessarily designed to do.... I suppose I’m looking for cosmetic suggestions as much as anything, I’m really shooting for the wow factor.
Okay, here's my basic setup
1. Last tourney had 42 players
2. Game is held in a home basement on 5 ten person tables
3. Buyin is $60.00 which includes your seat and food. BYOB. Lower buyin cost keeps everything completely friendly and the pot is still pretty good for the winners.
4. Payout went something like this... 1st $950.00, 2nd $550.00, 3rd $350, 4th $250, 5th $180.00, 6th $120.00
5. Player's arrive with a custom made credit card sized color membership card in hand. I bought some PVC cards online that have a special coating that allow them to accept regular inkjet ink. I printed the cards with my tournament league logo on the front and a unique barcode on the back. Senior league members also get their picture on the back. The barcode number corresponds with the playerID stored within the TD software.
6. Each player comes to my computer / registration desk upon arrival. Their membership card is scanned using a Metrologic Voyager 9540 hand held scanner. TD software will not allow incoming data from a serial peripheral device like the scanner. So I must also run a little keyboard wedge type application, I'm sure there are many that would work fine, I used something called TAL BC-Wedge. I was able to program a number of suffix characters that are transmitted along with the scan, this makes things really cool. When the membership card is scanned it automatically buys the player into the tournament and places them in a random seat. As the operator, I simply have to press enter once to accept the seat placement. The membership card is also used to bust out players.
7. I’ve setup a tournament welcome screen which shows past tournament winners, when the next tourney will be, my league logo and the count down to start clock
8. I use a VGA video distribution box to transmit the TD game screen to seven monitors strategically placed around the room. The screens are various sizes and resolutions, few of them are 50 inch screens or better which makes the setup quite impressive for a home game…. It really takes on a professional like feel. During the pre-game count down the screens alternate between the welcome screen and the table seating chart. There are also many custom audio announcements which are presented though a multi-speaker home stereo. The announcements are triggered by the time clock during pre-game; they welcome players to the tourney, remind them to register, and provide 30min, 20min, 10min, 5min, 3min, and 1min warnings. The 3 second countdown is from the TV show “24” and then I use a “we’re ready, so shuffle up and deal” audio kick off announcement. The tournament is full of automatic audio announcements for blind adjustments, break starts, table balancing, bust outs, etc.
9. A custom screen appears during break periods which show a countdown clock and if a CHIP UP period is in affect.
10. I did not use a bounty system during the last two tournaments; I’m planning on using one for the up coming tournament.
11. I would like to have one big screen monitor which shows an updated seating chart at all times, the other six monitors I have will show whatever game screen is active. I received a nice detailed suggestion in the forums from JodiBingo on how to accomplish this feet using an HTML export of the seating chart…. However it looks a bit complex and I haven’t gotten around to implementing it yet.
12. I’m working on starting a website that will show member stats, and upcoming tournament announcements. I would love to setup something so that players can register for the tournament online beforehand using their credit or debit card….. However I’m sure this is taking things way too far for a home game…. Not likely this will ever work without a massive expense.
Well, that’s all I can think of, let me know what you guys think and if you’ve got any suggestions to make my little event a real spectacle!!
Thanks very much!