Home poker tournament clock and payout planner

A home tournament needs a blind level everyone can see and a prize sheet everyone can check. This clock keeps the current level, remaining time and next level together. The payout planner starts with your paid entries, removes the fee you enter and divides the remaining pool into the shares you choose.

Amina: “Choose the opening blinds with the starting stack. Ten thousand chips can mean 200 big blinds or just 50.”

Build a schedule everyone can read

Each playing level needs its duration, small blind, big blind and ante. Enter those four values on one line, separated by commas. For example, 15,25,50,0 means 15 minutes at blinds of 25 and 50 with no ante. A break needs its duration and BREAK, such as 5,BREAK. Put each level or break on a separate line.

Choose the starting stack alongside the opening blinds. A 10,000-chip stack at 25/50 is 200 big blinds deep. The same stack at 100/200 is only 50 big blinds. Giving everyone more chips changes little if you increase the blinds by the same proportion. Count in big blinds when comparing two possible structures.

The size of each increase matters as well as the length of a level. Moving from 100/200 to 150/300 raises the big blind by 50%. Moving straight to 200/400 doubles it. An unchanged 10,000 stack falls from 50 big blinds to about 33.3 in the first case and to 25 in the second. These are different choices even with identical 15-minute levels.

Use Apply settings to check the entries and prepare the schedule. Start begins the first level; Pause stops elapsed play time; Start / resume continues it. The displayed ante is an amount you specify. The organizer still needs to say whether every player pays it or the big blind posts it for the table.

Background timing and device limits

Put the clock on a powered device where the dealer and players can read it. Check the screen’s sleep setting before starting and keep the page open. The clock does not keep the screen awake or guarantee a sound or vibration at a level change. Give someone responsibility for announcing the new blinds.

Reloading the page loses the running state. Changing the device’s system time can also alter the elapsed time calculation. Keep a separate note of the current level and remaining time at breaks, especially before handing the device to someone else. The later recovery example explains which information is useful.

Payouts that add up to the prize pool

The planner uses one price and one fee for every paid entry. Prize pool = entries multiplied by (full entry price minus fee per entry). If ten entries cost 20 each and 2 from each entry is retained as a fee, the total collected is 200, total fees are 20 and the prize pool is 180. Enter the full price as 20, not 18.

A 50/30/20 payout split divides that 180 into 90 for first, 54 for second and 36 for third. The shares describe how the pool is divided; they do not change its size. For a fee-free example, eight entries at 10 create a pool of 80. The same split produces 40, 24 and 16.

The formula assumes equal entry prices and fees. Added prizes, guarantees, taxes, discounts and separate expenses need their own accounting. Settle the actual pool before dividing it. Changing a payout percentage cannot explain why the money available differs from the entry record.

Announce the plan to the table

Agree on the schedule, entry conditions and payout plan before play starts. Keep the record of actual entries separately from this page. The planner calculates from what you enter; it does not collect money, verify payments or transfer prizes. A correct calculation can still use the wrong entry count.

Count paid entries rather than different people. Eight players making one entry each, followed by four permitted re-entries, produce 12 entries. That does not mean 12 players were seated at once. Record each additional entry when it happens and distinguish it from an unpaid seat reservation.

If registration or re-entries remain open, label the prize sheet provisional. State the cutoff in terms people can recognize, such as a named level or a specific clock time, and explain how breaks affect it. A cutoff measured by clock time can pass during a break; a cutoff tied to a playing level follows the stated level rule. Announce which convention your home event uses.

Read the default schedule before starting

The example schedule has four playing levels of 15 minutes each and one five-minute break. It starts at 25/50, moves to 50/100, pauses for the scheduled break, then continues at 100/200 with an ante of 25 and 200/400 with an ante of 50. Total scheduled time is 65 minutes.

Breaks count toward the schedule’s total duration. If you start this example at 7:00 p.m. and never pause it manually, the break begins at 7:30, play resumes at 7:35 and the final scheduled level ends at 8:05. An extra ten-minute pause moves that last time to 8:15.

The end of the schedule does not guarantee that somebody has won the tournament. Players may still have chips when its final row expires. Prepare enough later levels and agree on a continuation plan beforehand. The clock’s Finished message means that the entered schedule has ended; it does not award a finishing position.

The schedule accepts 1 through 60 rows, with whole-minute durations from 1 through 180. Blinds and antes use whole chip units. The big blind must be positive, and the small blind cannot exceed it. Choose amounts your chip denominations can actually represent, particularly after removing smaller chips from play.

Ante convention changes the starting pot. At 200/400 with nine players paying 50 each, the unopened pot is 200 + 400 + 450 = 1,050. If the big blind instead posts a single ante of 400, it is 1,000. With six players paying 50 each, it is 900. The same stated big-blind ante remains 400 unless your rules explicitly change it.

An ante number on the screen does not establish short-stack posting order, chip removal or a reduction when the table gets short-handed. Announce those rules separately. If you use the default ante of 50 as a per-player ante, say so before that level begins instead of expecting everyone to infer it.

Rehearse pause and resume

Apply your intended schedule and run a short rehearsal. Start the clock, let several seconds pass, then press Pause. The remaining time should stop changing. Wait a little longer, then resume. The time spent paused is excluded, and the level continues from the point where you stopped it.

Reset clock has a different purpose. It returns the prepared schedule to its first level with the clock stopped. Reset inputs restores the example settings and applies them again. Use these controls during rehearsal so the person running the event recognizes the difference before anyone has chips in play.

Editing any setting pauses and invalidates the running schedule. Applying the edited settings starts a fresh schedule. That includes changing an entry count or payout percentage, because the clock and prize settings are linked. Correcting the prize sheet will not leave the old clock running.

Suppose you are seven minutes into a 15-minute level when you need to make a change. Record the blinds, ante, eight minutes remaining and whether the clock is paused. Applying the original list again would return to its first row, not to those eight remaining minutes. The page cannot recover that earlier position for you.

For a planned restart at that point, you could enter the current level as an eight-minute first row followed by the remaining levels, then apply it and resume on the organizer’s announcement. This is a manually reconstructed schedule. Keep the written event level number because the displayed row numbering will start again.

The input format accepts whole minutes only. If a restart note says 7:42 remains, it cannot reproduce that interval exactly as a new row. Use an independent timer for the remaining interval or agree and announce an adjustment. Avoid silently rounding a live level while players believe the original schedule is still in force.

Amina: “Before resetting, write down the blinds and time left. Use that note to rebuild the remaining schedule.”

What a background tab can and cannot do

A browser can delay timer updates while another tab is active or the device is busy. This clock compares timestamps instead of assuming that every update happened one second after the last. If an update arrives 90 seconds late, it accounts for those 90 seconds together. It may cross more than one schedule row during a longer gap.

That catch-up happens when the page runs again. It does not promise that an announcement occurred while the device slept. A forward change to system time can move the schedule ahead. A backward change is prevented from reversing the displayed elapsed time, but it can hold the display still until the timestamps catch up.

Under Poker TDA 2026 rule 25, a new level’s limits apply to the next hand. A change during a hand does not replace the blinds already in force for that hand. The rule also defines when a new hand begins. Adopt that procedure explicitly if you want it for your event; avoid improvising a different cutoff after the cards are dealt.

A blind clock and a player’s decision clock do different jobs. This page times the schedule’s levels and breaks. It does not time individual decisions, declare a hand dead or apply a penalty. Keep a person in charge of the event even when the screen is easy for everyone to read.

Check the fee before applying percentages

Take a second example with 12 paid entries at 25 each and a fee of 3 per entry. Each entry contributes 22 to the prize pool. Total collected is 300, total fees are 36 and the pool is 264. At 50/30/20, the awards are 132, 79.20 and 52.80.

Compare that with a 60/25/15 split of the same pool. The awards become 158.40, 66 and 39.60. First place receives 26.40 more, while second and third each receive 13.20 less. The total still equals 264. This comparison shows the tradeoff without treating either split as a universal tournament standard.

If a thirteenth entry is accepted at that same price and fee, it adds 22 to the pool and 3 to the fee total. The new pool is 286 and fees total 39. The 50/30/20 awards become 143, 85.80 and 57.20. That is why an early prize sheet needs a provisional label while additional entries remain possible.

The entry total also differs from the number of players left. Eliminating someone does not remove their original contribution from the pool. Similarly, a player who re-enters may contribute twice while occupying only one seat at a time. Use the entry ledger for money and a separate remaining-player count for the tournament.

Tournament chips need another count. Eight starting stacks of 10,000 put 80,000 chips in play. If those chips remain in circulation and four players are left, the average stack is 20,000. At a 400 big blind that is 50 big blinds. Individual stacks may be much larger or smaller; an average is not an extra stack issued to each survivor. Re-entries and chip removals change that total; the planner does not track stacks.

Follow a cent through the rounding rule

Payout percentages can produce fractions smaller than a cent. The planner first takes the whole-cent portion of each share, then assigns leftover cents to the largest fractional remainders. When remainders tie, the earlier finishing position gets priority. This is the planner’s stated rounding method, not a general rule for every poker tournament.

For a pool of 10.01 divided 50/30/20, the exact shares are 5.005, 3.003 and 2.002. Taking only whole cents gives 5.00, 3.00 and 2.00, totaling 10.00. One cent is left. First place has the largest remainder, so the final awards are 5.01, 3.00 and 2.00.

For an equal 50/50 split of that same 10.01, both exact shares are 5.005. The floors leave one cent and the remainders tie. The earlier-place tie-break makes the displayed awards 5.01 and 5.00. Explain this convention before the figures become an argument about the last cent.

Check the sum of the displayed awards against the displayed pool. Rounding every prize independently can leave a shortfall or excess. The remainder method allocates the entire pool without changing the entered shares. It can only allocate the pool you supplied, so it does not replace the entry and fee reconciliation.

Enter percentages in finishing order. They must each be positive, use at most two decimal places and total exactly 100. A total of 99.99 is incomplete even if the difference looks small. The planner accepts at most 100 paid places and never more paid places than entries. It uses the order supplied rather than choosing or ranking a payout plan for you.

The displayed currency applies to all amounts in that calculation. Changing its label does not convert exchange rates. Keep entries, fees and the prize pool in the same currency. If your group pays prizes in whole currency units, agree on a separate rounding plan and check its total instead of treating cents on the screen as whole units.

Amina: “Count every paid entry, subtract the stated fees, then check that all prizes together equal the pool.”

Make the announcement understandable

Before the first hand, read out the opening blinds, starting chips, ante convention and first break. Give the entry cutoff and allowed re-entry conditions in the same announcement. Players should know whether a break is part of the schedule and who will announce its end.

For the ten-entry example, a concise prize announcement is: ten entries at 20 each, with 2 retained per entry, make a pool of 180; the agreed 50/30/20 split pays 90, 54 and 36. Add the chosen currency. For your event, replace every number from the actual record before reading it aloud.

Resolve game-rule questions separately from the schedule. The pot-limit maximum raise lesson explains the difference between a call, a raise increment and a final total. For an Omaha game, the six-card Omaha guide covers legal hand construction. Other published lessons are in Info & Tools.

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