Poker Tournament Manager

When Every Agency Says No

There is a particular kind of frustration that comes from knowing exactly what you need, being willing to pay for it, and still getting turned down.

This client ran poker tournaments. Not casual Friday night games — proper, structured events with brackets, point systems, player rankings across seasons, and a scoring model that accounted for variables most people would not think about. Table assignments, blind structures, rebuy logic, elimination tracking, final table seating — all of it interconnected.

They went to three agencies. The first quoted $40,000 and a three-month timeline. The second quoted $25,000 and looked visibly uncomfortable during the requirements discussion. The third said “have you considered just using a spreadsheet?”

The problem was not money. The client was prepared to invest. The problem was that the logic did not fit into any existing template, and building from scratch scared agencies who make their margins on repetition.

The Complexity Problem

Tournament management sounds simple until you actually map it out. A single elimination bracket is straightforward. But add rebuys, add-ons, multiple starting flights, point accumulation across a season, tie-breaking rules that cascade through three levels of criteria, and suddenly you are looking at a system that needs to handle hundreds of interconnected decisions in real time.

Traditional development struggles with this kind of project because the complexity is front-loaded. You cannot build it incrementally and hope the pieces fit together later. The scoring logic has to be right from day one because everything else depends on it.

Agencies know this. That is why they either over-quote to cover the risk or turn the project down entirely.

Four Days of Focused Work

The build started with the scoring engine. Not the interface, not the player management — the core logic that everything else would wrap around. AI excels at this kind of work because it can hold the entire rule set in context simultaneously. No “I need to check with the other developer who built that module.” No knowledge gaps between team members.

Day one: scoring engine and bracket logic. Day two: player management, season tracking, and the points system. Day three: the interface — tournament dashboard, live bracket display, player profiles. Day four: edge cases, testing with real historical tournament data the client provided, and deployment.

The client sat with me during testing on day four, running last season’s results through the system. Every bracket matched. Every point total matched. Every tie-break resolved correctly.

What $0 Recurring Means

One detail that often gets overlooked in software projects: the ongoing cost. Most agencies build on platforms that require monthly subscriptions, hosting fees, or maintenance contracts. It is how they keep revenue flowing after the build is done.

This system was built to run independently. No monthly platform fees. No per-user licensing. No “you will need our support plan for $500/month.” The client owns the tool outright, runs it on straightforward hosting, and the only cost is the hosting itself — a fraction of what any subscription-based solution would charge.

When they need modifications for next season — new tournament formats, adjusted scoring rules — those are targeted updates, not monthly retainer conversations.

The Lesson

If you have been told your idea is too niche, too complex, or not worth building — that was probably true when the only option was a team of developers spending months on it.

It is not true anymore. AI handles complexity differently. It does not get confused by interconnected logic. It does not need six people in a room to understand your requirements. And it does not charge you $40,000 because your project does not fit a template.