Building a Better Tool for Home Poker Leagues — Looking for Feedback (2 Viewers)

[Svinster]

Hey everyone,

My name is Sujay and I’m a former Google engineer and longtime poker lover working on a web-based tool to help run poker tournaments and leagues more easily.

I’ve spent the past few weeks reading this forum (huge thanks to posters like HiveKueen, Moxie Mike, krafticus, CSW, and others — your threads have been incredibly insightful). It’s clear there’s a lot of passion here… and also a lot of juggling spreadsheets, blind timers, email blasts, and manual entry.

The Problem I’m Seeing:​

Even serious organizers with great systems are stitching together 3–4 tools just to get through a season. Tournament Director (TD) is incredibly powerful, but many of you mentioned:

• It’s Windows-only
• No remote control / phone interface
• No RSVP tracking
• Manual exports for league points
• Limited UI flexibility

Others rely on Blinds Up, Blind Valet, or Google Sheets — but each has gaps around syncing, customization, or reliability. Many of you said you’d gladly pay for a solution if it was robust, intuitive, and saved you time.

What I’m Building:​

A web-based platform focused on home tournament and league organizers. Key features will likely include:

• Blind timer with fully customizable display (WYSIWYG editor)
• Player management, buy-ins, rebuys, knockouts
• Automated points and payout calculation
• Season-long league tracking with standings, stats, and exports
• RSVP and registration workflows
• Multi-device support (control from your phone, show timer on a TV)
• Public league pages for players to check standings

It’ll work across platforms (Mac, PC, tablet, phone) and require no downloads.

Why I’m Posting:​

I want to build this with the community that will actually use it. I’d love to hear:

• What’s broken in your current setup?
• What would a “10/10” solution feel like?
• What would you be willing to pay (or not pay) for?
• Are there small touches or power features that you can’t live without?

If you’re running a league or recurring home game and are willing to chat more deeply or test a prototype down the line, I’d be grateful.

I'm willing to work on this product fulltime (I recently left my job to work on passion projects for a while) and work closely with all of you to develop the features you want.


Thanks so much — really appreciate how much wisdom is on this board.

 

[Highli99]

Very cool, good luck!

 

[HiveKueen]

You sure sound like the right man for the job...former google engineer!

What does the business case look like? Will this be a for-profit endeavor for you?

I run a season-based league, use TD, Thunderbird for email (lots of templates), Open Office for my spreadsheets and documents and have a website. Let me know if you want to case study what I'm doing.

Cheers,

 

[Svinster]

You sure sound like the right man for the job...former google engineer!

What does the business case look like? Will this be a for-profit endeavor for you?

I run a season-based league, use TD, Thunderbird for email (lots of templates), Open Office for my spreadsheets and documents and have a website. Let me know if you want to case study what I'm doing.

Cheers,

Hi HiveKueen! I'd love to study what you've built for yourself.

To answer your question: yes, this will be a for-profit product, but I’m not trying to extract VC-scale returns. I don't expect to make a lot from this. I left Google to build useful software independently and sustainably. So the goal is to build a tool that poker hosts actually love, and price it in a way that makes sense (possibly offering both subscription and one-time options based on usage style). This is a project for me to learn new technologies and build a real-world product form scratch that I can show off.

Your stack is exactly the kind of functional system I want to learn from — TD, Thunderbird templates, OpenOffice, and the GitHub site. It’s clearly working for you, but I imagine it took real effort to piece together. My goal is to offer something simpler for league runners — especially those who don’t want to DIY a system like yours, but still want pro-level results.

If you’re open to it, I’d love to walk through your setup in more detail. Cheers!

 

[HiveKueen]

Hi HiveKueen! I'd love to study what you've built for yourself.

DM me so we can arrange to have an initial phone conversation.

 

[drdr]

I run a season-based league, use TD, Thunderbird for email (lots of templates), Open Office for my spreadsheets and documents and have a website. Let me know if you want to case study what I'm doing.

Woah. Use the same setup with the exact same software you use. Just minus the website; though I own a domain and could do that if I had time.

Interested in this project. HiveKueen's input likely covers my setup.

 

[Machine]

Hi HiveKueen! I'd love to study what you've built for yourself.

To answer your question: yes, this will be a for-profit product, but I’m not trying to extract VC-scale returns. I don't expect to make a lot from this. I left Google to build useful software independently and sustainably. So the goal is to build a tool that poker hosts actually love, and price it in a way that makes sense (possibly offering both subscription and one-time options based on usage style). This is a project for me to learn new technologies and build a real-world product form scratch that I can show off.

Your stack is exactly the kind of functional system I want to learn from — TD, Thunderbird templates, OpenOffice, and the GitHub site. It’s clearly working for you, but I imagine it took real effort to piece together. My goal is to offer something simpler for league runners — especially those who don’t want to DIY a system like yours, but still want pro-level results.

If you’re open to it, I’d love to walk through your setup in more detail. Cheers!

We've seen a few ppl come and go, even with a web based solution. Fixed up front cost on a web-based product can be a risk if you drop the servers after someone pays an up front cost, can really short them.

Most of the members who would host are typically hosting cash games.

Hope the best for you, and I can't wait to see the product

 

[WedgeRock]

Fixed up front cost on a web-based product can be a risk if you drop the servers after someone pays an up front cost,

 

[Svinster]

We've seen a few ppl come and go, even with a web based solution. Fixed up front cost on a web-based product can be a risk if you drop the servers after someone pays an up front cost, can really short them.

Most of the members who would host are typically hosting cash games.

Hope the best for you, and I can't wait to see the product

Absolutely - asking someone to pay upfront for a web-based tool comes with a responsibility to maintain it. I’ve seen too many indie tools vanish after some time. I’m leaning toward offering a free tier for occasional users, a monthly option for leagues, and possibly a self-hosted fallback if I ever do need to sunset the platform. But hosting now has become cheap that this might end up being a moot point.

While my first focus is on tournament and league organizers, I’ll definitely keep the broader home cash game crowd in mind. Some features to support them might be on the roadmap later. Thanks for the support!

 

[Dann1215]

I wonder if it's worth it to have 'viewing' capabilities within the app. I'd love to be able to run a tournament and have the people who didn't make it have a bit of FOMO to encourage attendance the next time. In addition, if we transition from tournament to cash game, it would be good to be able to check in on where the tournament was (how many players, blinds, etc.).

Agree on free w/ paid features as a best approach to adoption.

-Dan