You know what happens when too many people arrive at the movie early and have nothing to do but sit there? I do: They trash the place.
A long time ago, movie theathers realized that they could prevent destruction by entrancing patrons with pictures of movie stars, trivia questions and tidbits of knowledge. Brilliant!
I got to thinking...people arrive at a poker tournament and sit around with nothing to do. Wouldn't it be great if you had a way of entertaining people just like the movie theater?
Yeah, I don't like the name either, but I couldn't think of anything better.
Information gives you the ability to entertain people while they sit around waiting to play poker.
I really did think of this concept while sitting in a movie theater. I thought, "Well, people are sitting around doing nothing. Wouldn't that be a good time to educate them, let them know about important events, rules, etc.? And, wouldn't it be great if the tool could do that for you?"
So, I started implementing it, then I started really thinking outside of the box about all the different stuff you might want to display on the console. In the end, I came up with seven different categories of information that you can use/create:
Information type | Description | Examples |
Announcement | A text string with an announcement you want to make. The thought is that you'll use this to remind everyone of important events. |
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Hand Nickname | Who doesn't like hand nicknames? These are purely for entertainment. When a hand nickname is displayed, you'll see the card(s) graphically displayed along with their nickname. |
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Quiz Question | This was the original type I thought of from the movie theater. Pop up a question...wait a few seconds and then have the answer appear. |
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Quotation | Displays a quote along with the name of the person to whom the quote is attributed. Did anyone say something funny at a recent tournament? Let everyone know about it! |
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Rule | Along with announcements, the other actually useful type (everything else is entertainment). It's always a good idea to hand your rules out, but you may also want them to display on the console. |
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Terminology | Terms and definitions. Everyone loves poker terminology. Entertain your players and educate them at the same time. |
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Trivia | Meant to be for fun tidbits. Like an announcement, this is just a single string of text to display. |
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Enjoy.
Send me stories of how you've used information to make your tournament more entertaining or alert your players of upcoming events!