meatshield
High Hand
Hey all — long-time lurker, regular home game host. I know there's already a solid tournament clock app that's been shared here and a lot of you use — that one's great for what it does, and this isn't meant to replace it so much as scratch a slightly different itch. I host both tournaments and cash games pretty regularly, and I kept wanting a few things I couldn't find in one place, so I ended up building my own tool over the past few months: The House Edge (www.thehouseedge.net).
A few things that make it a bit different from a standard tournament clock:
- **Both tournament and cash game modes**, not just a blind timer — cash games get their own dedicated timer with High Hand and Bad Beat Jackpot tracking built in.
- **Real playing card graphics** for the High Hand display — actual card art instead of text, so it reads clean on a TV or projector.
- **Smart Blind Structure Builder** — tell it how many hours you want the tournament to run and what chips you're using, and it generates the whole level structure for you (blinds, antes, breaks) instead of you eyeballing it.
- **Chip Distribution Calculator** — tells you exactly how many of each denomination to hand every player based on your actual chip set and buy-in, for both tournaments and cash games.
- **Auto-normalizing payout structure** — add or remove payout spots and the percentages automatically rebalance to 100%, no manual math.
- **Side game support** built in — 7-2 game, Nit game, Squid game bounties, with their own toggles.
- **Live multi-device sync** — if you're running the clock on your phone and casting the display to a TV, they stay in sync automatically (running/paused state, current level, payouts, all of it).
- **Visual customization** — a dozen+ color schemes, custom fonts, upload your own logo, adjustable transparency — so it doesn't look like a generic template on your screen.
- **Invites with real RSVP tracking** — send out a game night invite and actually see who's confirmed, who declined, and who hasn't responded, instead of chasing a group text. It also keeps a history, so you can see who tends to flake before you count on them for your next game.
- **Session Logbook** — a running ledger for the table, so buy-ins and cash-outs are tracked as the session goes and the books actually balance at the end of the night instead of everyone trying to reconstruct it from memory. It also tracks individual players' performance over time across sessions, and supports importing/exporting your data.
The core clock — both tournament and cash, blind structures, payouts, visual customization — is completely **free**, no account required to just use it as a timer. A handful of the deeper stuff (Logbook, multi-device sync, the chip calculator, side games) is behind a 4.99 one time purchase— not a subscription, just a single purchase if it's useful to you. There is a 7 day full unlock to try stuff out prior.
Built this mostly for my own games, figured I'd share in case something's clunky or missing — this is still very much a side project I keep tinkering with.
www.thehouseedge.net
A few things that make it a bit different from a standard tournament clock:
- **Both tournament and cash game modes**, not just a blind timer — cash games get their own dedicated timer with High Hand and Bad Beat Jackpot tracking built in.
- **Real playing card graphics** for the High Hand display — actual card art instead of text, so it reads clean on a TV or projector.
- **Smart Blind Structure Builder** — tell it how many hours you want the tournament to run and what chips you're using, and it generates the whole level structure for you (blinds, antes, breaks) instead of you eyeballing it.
- **Chip Distribution Calculator** — tells you exactly how many of each denomination to hand every player based on your actual chip set and buy-in, for both tournaments and cash games.
- **Auto-normalizing payout structure** — add or remove payout spots and the percentages automatically rebalance to 100%, no manual math.
- **Side game support** built in — 7-2 game, Nit game, Squid game bounties, with their own toggles.
- **Live multi-device sync** — if you're running the clock on your phone and casting the display to a TV, they stay in sync automatically (running/paused state, current level, payouts, all of it).
- **Visual customization** — a dozen+ color schemes, custom fonts, upload your own logo, adjustable transparency — so it doesn't look like a generic template on your screen.
- **Invites with real RSVP tracking** — send out a game night invite and actually see who's confirmed, who declined, and who hasn't responded, instead of chasing a group text. It also keeps a history, so you can see who tends to flake before you count on them for your next game.
- **Session Logbook** — a running ledger for the table, so buy-ins and cash-outs are tracked as the session goes and the books actually balance at the end of the night instead of everyone trying to reconstruct it from memory. It also tracks individual players' performance over time across sessions, and supports importing/exporting your data.
The core clock — both tournament and cash, blind structures, payouts, visual customization — is completely **free**, no account required to just use it as a timer. A handful of the deeper stuff (Logbook, multi-device sync, the chip calculator, side games) is behind a 4.99 one time purchase— not a subscription, just a single purchase if it's useful to you. There is a 7 day full unlock to try stuff out prior.
Built this mostly for my own games, figured I'd share in case something's clunky or missing — this is still very much a side project I keep tinkering with.
www.thehouseedge.net
