Simple Tournament Director

In addition to this post you should read the post Known problems and limitations.


Security and warnings

Why does a warning telling me that "The application's digital signature cannot be verified. Do you want to run the application?" appear when I launch the program?



Short answer:
So that you can save and load tournament setups.

Long answer:
Simple Tournament Director enables you to save and load your tournament setups(chips and levels) to your harddisk. When the application is run via Java Web Start it has to be digitally signed to get this permission. The reason the signature cannot be verified is because the certificate used to sign the application is not created by a Certificate Authority(CA). Using a Certificate Authority is expensive and since I don't make any dollars working on this I won't spend any either.

You should check "Always trust content from this publisher." and click on the Run button. If you don't check the "Always trust....." checkbbox this warning will appear every time you run the program. If you don't click the Run button but the Cancel button the program won't start.





Why does the Windows firewall block the program "Java(TM) Platform SE binary" when I run Simple Tournament Director?



Short answer:
So you can doubleclick a file you saved and have it opened in Simple Tournament Director. Just keep blocking it. If you use voice the warning will appear tvice since the VoiceEngine opens a socket which Simple Tournament Director connects to.

Long answer:
Simple Tournament Director enables you to doubleclick a file you've saved on your desktop for instance, and open that in an already running instance of the Simple Tournament Director. To enable this the application opens a ServerSocket to get notified when a user wants to open a file. The first instance you start of the program will create and open the ServerSocket on port 4720. Then if you try to start another instance it will check if the program is already running by checking if port 4720 is open already. If it is open(another instance is already running)it will exit so you never get more than one instance at a time. If you doubleclick a .lvl, .lch or a .chp file a new instance will start up, it will check if port 4720 is already open and if it is it will send the file you opened to the main instance.

You should just keep blocking the application because Simple Tournament Director only listens for connections from itself.


These warnings is freaking me out, can I get a "secure" version?

No! To much work to maintain two versions. If you don't trust me, move along.










Troubleshooting[/B]

When I try to run the program it won't start. What's wrong?

You probably need to install the latest version of Java:


If installing the latest version doesn't help you, you might have a corrupt version of Simple Tournament Director installed. You then need to uninstall the program and run it againg from the website. For instructions on uninstalling see next question.




How do I uninstall Simple Tournament Director?

Windows users:

You should be able to uninstall it via the the Add Remove programs dialog found in the control panel.

If that won't work do this:

Click Start->Run and type

javaws -viewer

A window should pop up. Select Simple Tournament Director on that list and click the Red Cross to delete it.

If the Add/Remove Programs application gives you a error like "Unable to completely remove the application" and the javaws -viewer command don't list the application, you can remove the entry via the registry:
Hit start->Run and type regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Uninstall and delete the key for Simple Tournament Director.




Linux users:

Type the javaws -viewer command in a terminal and remove the program in the Java Cache Viewer.



Usage[/B]

How do I configure levels

In the table editor it should be self explanatory.

If you are using the text editor though:

Levels are configured in the Level Editor in the following format:

Length[TAB]SB/BB(/Ante)

• Length is the length of the level specified in minutes.
• The TAB key is used to seperate Length from the blinds.
• SB is the small blind
• BB is the big blind.
• Ante is optional.

If you remove the SB/BB(/Ante) part or replace it with the word break a break is added.

It's important that you seperate the length of the levels and the blinds
with the TAB key and that you use the / character to separete the big blind, smallblind and eventually the ante. You can also load a default tournament template by pressing the "Insert template tournament" button and tweak that to your needs.





How do I configure chips

Just fill in the values for the different colors in your chipset and push the "Add Chips" button. If you have a chip with a colour not already defined use the Custom Coloured Chip section to add that.



How do I save a tournament setup?

When you have configured a tournament with levels and chips you can save this setup to a file. Click the Save button to do this. When the Save File dialog appears you can save your setup as three different filetypes and the filetype you choose decides what gets saved:
.lvl Choose this if you only want to save the levels.
.chp Choose this if you just want to save the chips.
.lch Choose this if you want to save both the levels and the chips and the tournament title.





How do I load a tournament setup?

Use the Load button to load a tournament setup into the Level Editor. You still have to "Apply changes" or "Accept and exit" to actually load the setup into the Simple Tournament Director. That way you can make changes to a saved setup before starting the tournament.

Another way is just to doubleclick a .lch, .lvl or .chp file. You can do this even if Simple Tournament Director is not running.




How can i change the layout of the main screen?

You resize the different areas one by one. You use the keys F7-F12 to do this.

F6 - Resize the label displaying antes.
F7 - Resize the tournament title.
F8 - Resize the label displaying general info like time elapsed and current time.
F9 - Resize the label displaying chips.
F10 - Resize the label displaying next break, time elapsed etc.
F11 - Resize the label displaying the blinds.
F12 - Resize the label displaying the time left of the current level.

The following image shows the above:
Layout shortcuts

To decrease the size of any of these labels combine the keys above with either <SHIFT> or <CTRL>.

You can also change the different background colors, or add a background image.


How can I change future levels or chips while a tournament is running?

Just click on the "Edit Levels" button while the tournament is running. Then just change what you want and press the "Accept and exit" button. This feature is particularly useful if you need to chip up(add chips with higher values) or if you find out that the tournament takes too long to finish. The only thing you can't change while the tournament is running is the current level. Changes to the current level won't be reflected in the main screen before you reset the tournament.




Missing features[/B]

Can I display the average stack size in the software?

No. As of now Simple Tournament Director's main concern is beeing fast and easy to setup so that you can concentrate on playing poker and not directing tournaments.


Can I register players and tables and autoseat them?

No. See question 4.

What about prize management?

You are free to pick the prizes you want. We won't put any restrictions on that.






Other[/B]

How can i run Simple Tournament Director on a computer without an internet connection?

Today you can't due to the voice libraries. I'll release a version without voice soon to enable this:

You need to download the Jar file and transfer that to the computer you will be using. After you've downloaded it you can run the program in one of the following ways:
- Doubleclick the .jar file(Will work on Windows with a working Java installation.)
- Start a shell, navigate to where you put the file and run the following command:

java -jar SimpleTournamentDirector.jar

If you have saved a tournament setup you always load after starting Simple Tournament Director you can use the following command to have it loaded on startup:

java -jar SimpleTournamentDirector.jar filenamen.lch

Be aware that file type associations will not work if it's not launched via Java Web Start. In other words you won't be able to doubleclick .lch, .lvl or .chp files and have them opened in Simple Tournament Director. You can ofcourse load and save files via the Level Editor.