Duration-Limited Poker Tournament System with Chip Reset
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional poker tournaments lack both a fixed maximum expenditure and a known duration of play, leading to uncertainty and potential frustration for players, while cash games offer relative certainty but with unknown costs and variable duration.
Innovation Solution
A duration-limited online poker tournament format where players pay a fixed amount and start each hand with a reset chip count, ensuring they cannot be eliminated before the predetermined duration ends, with scores calculated based on total chips won or lost across hands and prizes awarded based on these scores.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Duration of action of moving object
If conventional poker tournament format is used, then players can compete for prizes, but players face uncertainty in duration and potential early elimination
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-determines the duration of the poker tournament before play begins. The server establishes a fixed time limit or fixed number of hands in advance, eliminating uncertainty about when the tournament will end. This preliminary setting of parameters ensures players know exactly how long they will be committed to the game.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of allowing elimination based on chip count (traditional tournament format), the invention inverts the approach by guaranteeing all players complete the predetermined duration regardless of their chip status. The chip reset mechanism ensures that even players with zero chips continue playing through the full duration, reversing the traditional elimination principle.
2Reliability
If chip reset at start of each hand is implemented, then players cannot be eliminated early, but tracking chips won/lost across hands becomes necessary
Solution Approach 1:
The server acts as an intermediary that automatically tracks and calculates each player's chip winnings and losses across all hands. Instead of requiring complex player-side tracking, the server maintains centralized records of chip transactions, accumulating totals for each player throughout the tournament duration.
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides continuous feedback to players about their cumulative chip performance. The server calculates and communicates each player's total chips won or lost across hands, allowing players to see their standing relative to others while the chip reset mechanism ensures continued participation.
3Adaptability or versatility
If scores are calculated based on total chips won or lost, then prize distribution becomes merit-based, but calculation complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The scoring system automatically calculates each player's total chip performance without requiring external intervention. The server continuously accumulates chip win/loss data for each player and automatically determines final scores and prize allocations based on predetermined prize structures, making the system self-sufficient.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the evaluation parameter from final chip count (traditional tournaments) to cumulative chip performance (chips won minus chips lost). This parameter change allows for more nuanced prize distribution that rewards skill and strategy throughout the tournament rather than just final standing.
Data Source
AI summary
Described herein are techniques for operating a distributed computer system to implement a duration-limited online poker tournament. Also described herein are particular techniques for operating a distributed computer system to implement such a duration-limited online poker tournament. In some embodiments, a duration-limited online poker tournament is operated such that each player begins with a set number of funds, but those funds are not themselves used during gameplay. Rather, in the tournament each player is allotted a number of chips and, at an outset of each hand, each player's chips are reset to this number, regardless of the chips won or lost in preceding hands. At the end of the tournament, a player's winnings or losses may be determined based on the chips won or lost across the hands of the tournament.