App: Poker Buddy

Cost: £0.59 (On Sale)

Developer: Origin8

This week Shark-Stats have been using origin8’s “Poker Buddy” for the iPhone to run a few poker tournaments for a small group of friends. The app is on sale from the app store for only £0.59 which already makes it great value for money.

Update: If you want a free poker blind timer/chip calculator etc. then check out our very own PokerDIY Tourney Manager!

Once you have installed and open it up for the 1st time you are greeted by a slick looking interface. The options are easy to access with the setup, network and start buttons large enough to select and see.

This section covers all of the basics chips, blinds and prize structure all have their own specific areas. The options for chips/money and blinds are easily edited from the menus amount of rebuys etc are changed via a wheel option. The starting stacks, rebuys etc are changed individually in the same way, you need to select each area before using the wheel option. The buy-ins. Rebuys etc are all setup in the same way.

Moving on to the prize structure this allows you to set the prizes for the top 10 places. You need to set them up via percentages, using increase and decrease buttons. Once all parts of the structure has been set up you can save your tournament to access another time via the load tournament option.

This section is easy to use and once you know your way around it setting up different tournament structures will be a breeze.

PokerBuddy Network:

One of the main features of “Poker Buddy” is the option to connect to other iPhone over a network to share the tournament information. This is a great feature if you have more than one table and want everyone to see the timer and handle KO’s, rebuys etc.

Also there is the option to email your players details of the game, if anyone wants to see the timer via the internet an email is sent out to your contacts address. This gives them a link to follow which displays the timer, players and what level the tournament is at.

Post tournament an email is then sent to the players with the tournament details including places, KO in round, rebuys used etc. This is a great tool for poker leagues who want to get all of the information out quickly and accurately to their players.

PokerBuddy, Running of the Tournament:

Once you get the poker tournament underway you are greeted with the timer screen. Here you can access the prize structure, player list and blind levels. If you have 8 or less players in the poker tournament poker buddy will show their iPhone contact photo . From here tapping on their photo or name will show the action menu. You can knockout players, add rebuys or add-ons at a touch of a button. The only couple of problems I have come across is if you click addon or rebuy and they have not there is not an undo button, so just make sure you get the right player etc. Also if for any reason you need or want to change the blind levels during the tournament I could not find an option to do so, so I manually had to increase them at set points. Apart from these points the overall operation of the tournament is seamless.

When the tournament is underway a push of the screen will pause the clock and pushing it again will unpause.

PokerBuddy Conclusion:

This is a great poker iPhone application and has a lot of scope to bring something extra to your poker tournaments. There are of course areas that could be improved as mentioned earlier. But taking this into account the emailing of tournament stats is a welcome feature and something I would always be using. For this application I will give it 4 out of 5 based on the current version.

Do you agree with this review or did we miss something?

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