Yep. Same here.
Online Home Poker (9 Viewers)
- Thread starter kk405
- Start date
Thanks for the heads up @BearMetal and @DoubleEagle!
I'm somewhat competent with running a server and the software but this is my first time dipping my toes into AWS. Any suggestions on where to go to familiarize myself with the prepurchase process? I'm not sure what metrics I should be looking at to determine my needs.
I have a small but regular game - we have about 25 or so active users and play 3-4 nights a week. I've typically let the server run 24X7 but if that is going to dramatically impact costs than I could consider something different.
I'm somewhat competent with running a server and the software but this is my first time dipping my toes into AWS. Any suggestions on where to go to familiarize myself with the prepurchase process? I'm not sure what metrics I should be looking at to determine my needs.
I have a small but regular game - we have about 25 or so active users and play 3-4 nights a week. I've typically let the server run 24X7 but if that is going to dramatically impact costs than I could consider something different.
if you haven't used AWS before, then you can get away with a t2.micro instance for free for the first year. After the first year, upgrading to a t3.micro gives you more bang for your buck, and is a little easier to work with. But both instance types will support your games just fine.
Regarding the process of setting up AWS, just go back through the last 5 pages or so. I think I asked just about every question imaginable!
If I can do this, it will be a breeze for you if you already have some experience.
Do I need to be concerned at all about this? If my math is correct, I can leave my site up 24/7 and even in a 31 day month, that's 744 hours, which I assume is how they came up with the 750 per month limit. Don't they expect the usage to be 24/7?
LotsOfChips
Flush
Upsellers gonna upsell...
This is an automated warning when you hit 85% of whatever plan you have. If you mathematically can't exceed the limit, just ignore the notice.
This is an automated warning when you hit 85% of whatever plan you have. If you mathematically can't exceed the limit, just ignore the notice.
Hey all!
My Kiwanis club is going to run an online charity tournament in the very near future, so I'm running a Mavens server on a free tier AWS account (EC2 t2.micro instance). We're expecting 30-40 players, and I think the t2.micro should be sufficient for that - it's not running anything but Mavens.
When we run live tourneys, initial registrations and sponsorships typically cover the costs of the event, so the bulk of our profits come from rebuys and add-ons. This is tough to do for a charity game where players will not maintain a balance on the server, but I don't want to give up the extra income that rebuys and add-ons provide.
So, my plan is to run a re-entry tourney. This eliminates the rebuy timing problem; players will have all the time they need to pay me and get back in (with the caveat that they may end up in a new seat). I don't know if re-entry tourneys allow add-ons, but I would definitely like that option.
I expect a lot of the players will be casual - some with little poker experience, and most with little or no online poker experience.
I considered allowing players to pre-fund their accounts, but that's problematic. I don't want any players to carry a balance on the site, and I don't want the extra work (and possible Paypal suspicions) of processing a bunch of refunds after the event.
So, what haven't I thought of? What else can I do to make this work as smoothly as possible? Thanks in advance!
My Kiwanis club is going to run an online charity tournament in the very near future, so I'm running a Mavens server on a free tier AWS account (EC2 t2.micro instance). We're expecting 30-40 players, and I think the t2.micro should be sufficient for that - it's not running anything but Mavens.
When we run live tourneys, initial registrations and sponsorships typically cover the costs of the event, so the bulk of our profits come from rebuys and add-ons. This is tough to do for a charity game where players will not maintain a balance on the server, but I don't want to give up the extra income that rebuys and add-ons provide.
So, my plan is to run a re-entry tourney. This eliminates the rebuy timing problem; players will have all the time they need to pay me and get back in (with the caveat that they may end up in a new seat). I don't know if re-entry tourneys allow add-ons, but I would definitely like that option.
I expect a lot of the players will be casual - some with little poker experience, and most with little or no online poker experience.
I considered allowing players to pre-fund their accounts, but that's problematic. I don't want any players to carry a balance on the site, and I don't want the extra work (and possible Paypal suspicions) of processing a bunch of refunds after the event.
So, what haven't I thought of? What else can I do to make this work as smoothly as possible? Thanks in advance!
LotsOfChips
Flush
If you have a bunch of players that are completely new to online poker, I suggest a free test game the day (or week) before. That lets everybody get used to accessing the site, creating the account (unless you plan to do that yourself), logging in, joining the game, working out the nuances of the interface, etc. Otherwise you may find a lot of people messaging you with questions at the start of the game, or wanting their money back because they couldn't get into the game on time.
LotsOfChips
Flush
Other than promotion, your costs should be minimal (once the Mavens license is bought). No hall rental, chair/table rental, no dealers, chips or cards required. So you may find your proceeds from initial buy ins are more than from live games.
But yeah, a rebuy/add on is definitely something to consider. It is really tough to try and text with a bunch of people all trying to rebuy at the same time, process multiple incoming payments, add them to accounts, let the players know when that is done so they can re-enter, etc. Really, it is so much easier to have everyone send in some additional money if they think that they might rebuy or add on. And if this is a charity event, you may find that more than a few of those that don't end up draining their account might just say at the end of the night "keep it, its for a good cause".
Good luck with it all!
I ran my first one a few weeks ago. I don't like how Mavens does them. Reentry causes the late registration to fill up artificially and the pay-out places to inflate artificially. For example, if your tourney starts with 15 players and you have 2 tables running with 10 seats, the registration and re-entry will END after 5 re-entries. And it will pay out for 20 entrants (even though there were only 15). It's lame; the should use unique players.
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LotsOfChips
Flush
Do you mean that the total prize purse is for 20 entrants, or that it uses the larger number of players to determine the prize distribution?
The former seems fair, the latter seems wrong for a re-buy tournament, but somewhat right for a re-entry tournament (each re-entry is for all intents a new player).
Or you could edit the payout structure to be the same for anything more than say 12 players.
The bit about limiting the number of total entries to the number of seats at the tables seems a bit unusual. Did you have mavens set up to limit the number of tables? Maybe if you set it for 3 or 4 tables, it would allow more re-entries? (possibly a question for Kent)
I mean that each re-entry is counted as a unique player for the payout structure. As for the tables, yes, I have 2 tables with 10 players. This is because we only have 18 total players, so we never need more than 20 seats for our rebuy tournaments.
So, let's say I have 11 players start together. The payouts are:
1-6: 100
7-11: 70, 30
12-17: 60, 25, 15
18-24: 50, 25, 15, 10
25-30: 50, 20, 10, 15, 5
So when the night starts, I only have 2 payouts. 7 of my players re-enter, so now there are 4 payouts? It's the same number of players. In a rebuy tournament, there would still only be 2 payouts.
And now there's also only 2 spots left for registration, making only 13 unique players.
I'm running a test game this week with members of the club for two reasons: 1) work out any bugs or problems with the Mavens setup, and 2) find the "pain points" for people who are not online poker players.
I like the idea of a free tourney/tutorial a day or two before to help the newbies prior to the real event.
Good to know, I will test this out prior to the event.
For the record, we typically do fixed prize amounts rather than a percentage of the pool. We haven't decided for sure yet on this one, but since Mavens account balances are meaningless, it won't matter if the payout calcs are screwed up.
What's everyone doing for custom Mavens table graphics? I love the table / room that Craig uses at Windy Crest. I checked out the site for the guy he got his from. https://mavenstables.com/
A wee bit pricy at $75 for the premium one Craig uses. Not sure if there's an additional charge for adding a custom logo. His basic layouts start at $35, but after a few upgrades, I'm probably still looking at at least $50.
Do any of our resident chip designers do Mavens graphics too?
A wee bit pricy at $75 for the premium one Craig uses. Not sure if there's an additional charge for adding a custom logo. His basic layouts start at $35, but after a few upgrades, I'm probably still looking at at least $50.
Do any of our resident chip designers do Mavens graphics too?
That's who I used. There was a discount on using two of my logos. I didn't add any real flare, so it was like $50. He went back and forth with me to get it right too. Very responsive!
Edit: I made a couple of my own tables which lasted about 3 months on my site before I finally broke down and just paid for a much nicer one.
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MrCatPants
Full House
I have used him several times. He does good work.
Are you wanting to stop the software or shut down the server? You can do either either/or but it would be a different process if you just want to stop the software.
Not that I'm aware of. Now of course you could use the built-in windows task scheduler to kill the process, but that shuts it down in a way that's not clean. I wouldn't recommend that. I would say the best thing to do would be to maybe schedule the machine to go down at 2:00 a.m. through AWS.
OP
OP
I want to stop the games...basically stop people from playing!
OP
OP
TY. Any potential issues if I schedule it through AWS to reboot every night?
I don't believe so it would do a graceful shutdown which should send a signal to all running processes that they should stop.
LotsOfChips
Flush
Any hands in play would terminate mid-hand. Not sure how the money in the pot would be credited back to the players. If it was me and I was involved in a monster pot and the server shut down mid-hand, I would be super pissed off.
LotsOfChips
Flush
There is no setting in PM that allows you to stop a game in progress at a specific time. You can pause a table (or all tables) manually, and I am sure that you could develop a script that would pause the tables at a specific time, but the players could still be mid-hand.
Any particular reason that you want to end play at a specific time? You could send a notice to all players telling them to go home (or to stop playing, as they are probably already home) at a certain time. That might be as effective as anything else.
OP
OP
Some night the players play until 2-3AM, some nights they play until 5AM...trying to tell everyone to stop at 1/2AM, but doubt they would just comply...if they see the server doesn't cut off at 2AM, they WILL play longer
Are they being too loud? Drinking all your beer?Some night the players play until 2-3AM, some nights they play until 5AM...trying to tell everyone to stop at 1/2AM, but doubt they would just comply...if they see the server doesn't cut off at 2AM, they WILL play longer
I guess I don't see the problem here, it's online poker
OP
OP
They are being notified that server will automatically shut off the game at a specified time and they should be winding down their games, preferably stopping 5-10 minutes before the deadline.
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