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Review of the PokerGenie - Texas Holdem Tournament Clock
| | Reviewed 26th April 2006
This is the THF review of The Poker Genie - a texas holdem tournament clock which also counts the blinds and antes for you. You can comment on this review here. It currently retails for around $69.95.
First Impressions
I got my pokergenie a few weeks ago. That night i was playing a home game with about 8 or 9 friends so i took it down to use. Since im from the UK and it had a north american plug i had to use the converter i have for my japanese psp. So i plugged it in, the lights started flashing and i was suitably impressed....that was until about 30 seconds later when i heard a hissing sound and there was smoke coming from the plug. That cant be good!!!
Clearly this was an issue with the power connection. The pokergenie isnt powerful enough to need a step down converter (which is needed to play most american gaming systems in the uk) so i didnt think that was the problem. The problem was obvious - i had plugged it into a 6 plug multi adapter which was also powering a tv, video, hi-fi, sony playstation and a dvd player. Thankfully common sense prevailed and we found a spare socket (which wasnt powering half the flat!) and got the genie going.
I have since used the genie again since that night and i understand how to use it much better but here are my initial impressions after using it for a few hours :-
- The genie is a very good size.....portable but big enough for everyone to see
- The lights on the genie are very bright - its pretty impressive when the clocks ticking
- An option to power it with a battery instead of a power cord would have been good
- The power cable is seperate for the genie (ie. the plug isnt permenantly attached to the genie itself so you need to plug in the cord to the poker genie). We found the cord to be a little to easy to knock out of the pokergenie itself. We had set up the tournament schedule for 8 players etc and then we sat it up on the cd shelf so that everyone could see the clock. Whilst doing so the cable came out and we had to enter all the details again.
- The automatic blinds schedule can be a little tricky the first few times you set things up.
- We found the blinds increased using the automatic schedule in a strange order. Blinds went moved from 75/150 to 150/300 to 250/500 to 350/700 and then to 350/700 with 100 ante (although this was because we didnt set it up correctly at the start).
- The custom blinds option is much better
Again, i will stress that this was my initial impression of the pokergenie after using it for 2 home games with my friend. I will illustrate later in the review how we set it up incorrectly.
The above pic shows an unpowered genie. As you can see, steps showing you how to set it up are on the front
The back of the pokergenie has instructions on how to set it up....very handy
The clock comes with a 4 page manual showing you how to set it up
Setting up your tournament
The pokergenie uses a 5 step process of setting up the tournament using their automatic schedule. You can also setup your own custom blind schedule if already have this setup for your home games.
If you are happy for the pokergenie to tell you how to set up the blinds then its just a matter of inputting how many players you have, details of the chips and a rough estimate of how long you want the game to last. You would then setout the blinds according to the details the pokergenie gives you.
Heres the 5 steps of information the genie needs to help you set up your tournament (its really only 4 as the last step is the genie telling you how to set things up) :-
- (i) Enter the number of chip colors in your chip set
(ii) Enter the chip value of each color
(iii) Enter the chip quantity of each chip color (ie. the number of those chips you have in your chip set)
- Enter the number of players in your tournament
- Select the starting chip amount for each player
- Select tournament length
- Distribute chips per player as instructed
So lets go through this step by step and see how we would do this. You can also download the video of me setting this up here.
I've went through all of the steps using the chips of a 300 piece poker chip set as an example. ie.
- 100 white chips (commonly used as $1)
- 50 red chips (commonly used as $5)
- 50 blue chips (commonly used as $10)
- 50 green chips (commonly used as $25)
- 50 black chips (commonly used as $100)
so the following was entered
-
(i) Enter the number of chip colors in your chip set :5
(ii) Enter the chip value of each color : 100x$1, 50x$5, 50x$10, 50x$25, 50x$100
(iii) Enter the chip quantity of each chip color (: entered as above.
- Enter the number of players in your tournament :6
- Select the starting chip amount for each player :$300
- Select tournament length :2 hours
- Distribute chips per player as instructed : Output = 15 $1 chips, 8 $5 chips, 7 $10 chips, 3 $25 chips, 1 $100 chips = $300 with blinds starting in round 1 at $3/$6 going up every 15 minutes
You will recall earlier how my first impression of the pokergenie was mixed. The cord being too easy to come out was a minor gripe as if you set it up and sit it somewhere for everyone to see theres no need to tamper with it or move it about. My wish for a battery isnt a criticism either...i just think its silly they missed this feature out - i mean, its so small and portable, why not give us the option of powering it with a battery!!
No, my major annoyance was the way the blinds were being set up. It wasn't until a day or so later when i switched it on again and played around with it that i worked out what we did wrong. At the home game where i first tested this out we had counted out 3000 worth of chips and given them out to all the players. We play home games a lot so we knew that 3000 chips and 15 minute blinds was the best way for tournament to work.
This is where we messed up (im gonna blame my mate Tony as he was setting it up - honest!!). At the first stage you need to enter the number of chips of each color which are in your chip set. We were using my 500 piece poker set. We had counted out 11 $100 chips for each stack so we were entering $100 for the chip value and then $1100 as we thought we had to enter the chips worth. Wrong wrong wrong!!! What we should have entered was $100 for chip value and 150 for number of $100 chips. All in all we got it back to front. To use the automatic feature you need to enter the details of your chip set, tell the pokergenie how much you want to start with and then determine the blinds. If you already have the chip counts set up, you need to use the custom blinds setup.
The first time you use the pokergenie it seems like its gonna be a pain in the ass everytime you want to set it up. As you can see from the video of me setting the above scenario up, its actually very very simple once you know what your looking for.
The custom mode is also quite good and will probably suit those of you who stick to the same chips/time schedule every week in your home game.
I dont see the need for me to go over this section in too much detail so heres what The Poker Genie have to say about it
- Up to 30 custom rounds
- Custom Round Time on a per-round basis from 5 minutes to 90 minutes
- Custom Ante values from .01 to 990,000 (or 0 if you choose not to use an Ante)
- Custom Small Blind values from .01 to 40 million
- Custom Big Blind values from .01 to 40 million
- Option to manage the Small Blind and Big Blind independently (in other words, the Big Blind does not have to be 2x the Small Blind)
- Ability to program Break Rounds up to 90 minutes long into your custom blind schedule
Conclusion
You have probably noticed by now that i am not the worlds most impressive photographer - some of the pics above are a little blurred and not in the best light. I encourage you all to have a look at the video i took of me setting the poker genie up. It will show you how good it looks when its on - the colours of the lights are very bright and its actually pretty loud. Whilst my first impressions of the genie were a little mixed due to me setting it up incorrectly, my final opinion of it is very positive. At $69.95 it might be a little expensive for some - though its not something your gonna buy year in year out. No doubt you'll be using it in your home games for years.
Pros - Loud enough for everyone to hear the blinds go up
- Very Bright & Clear colours
- Can be seen from a good distance from everyone in your game....no one will need to ask what stage the blinds or at or when do the blinds move up
- Saves previous settings from games so if you use the same poker chip set every week most settings will already be in (something i wasnt aware of when i first used it and got pissed that it switched off!)
- Custom Blind option available
- Good instructions on the back of the clock and a flashing light on the front confirming what stage you are at in the setup
- When blinds move up the round level of blinds is briefly displayed (which i like!)
Cons - Perhaps a little pricey for those who only play every now and then
- If the power connection comes loose in the middle of a game and the genie loses power, you need to go back to the beginning...so when you set it up, sit it somewhere that no one can tamper with it!
- The play button on the genie we received seemed a little unresponsive at times and we occasionally had to push it more than once to enter our selection
Wishes - Battery option would have been good
- An attachable hook/clip for attaching to a wall/shelf would be very handy
- An international power connection supplied for those outside north america (this wont really concern any of you in north america
 )
Videos - Video 1 (52 mb) : Setting up the pokergenie for the example tournament used in this review.
- Video 1 (8 mb) : Video showing the blinds moving from level 1 to level 2.
PokerGenie's response to the THF Cons & Wishes - Updated 27th April 2006
The day after i wrote this review Marc from Pokergenie contacted me to answer some of the points raised in this review.
Battery option would have been good
PokerGenies Response : We did thoroughly
look in to this, however the bright displays that you enjoyed consume a
lot of power. So much that simple duracell batteries cannot power the
unit for a tournament running hours. In the worst case scenario your
batteries go dry mid tourney. We need a high end lithium battery which
is very expensive. Though we may offer this as an accessory in the
future.
An attachable hook/clip for attaching to a wall/shelf would be very handy
PokerGenies Response : As for a stand/wall mount, its on its way, stay tuned.
If your looking for a poker clock to complement your home games, you cant do much better than the poker genie.
You can purchase The Poker Genie at their Official Site.
* This article was written by Kevin Muldoon (aka fonzerelli_79) of TexasHoldemForums. This article may not be reproduced without our consent.
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