Poker Ace Timer

[Lord Bodak]

The Poker Ace Timer review was interesting, looks like a nice gadget.  I've seen some posts here saying the Poker Genie doesn't keep good time, is the Poker Ace Timer better at that?

I like that it's small and portable and it may be worth picking up if people seem to like it.

[sharkyspoker]

Anyone interested in a group buy. I'll call the company and see what they offer.

Sharky

[sharkyspoker]

I just sent an email to the company asking what their bulk order price scale is. I'll keep this thread posted.

Sharky

[ky70]

I like everything about this timer except the price.  Reading the review, I thought it would be in $30-$40 range and a cheaper alternative to the Genie.

[austin5string]

I like everything about this timer except the price.  Reading the review, I thought it would be in $30-$40 range and a cheaper alternative to the Genie.

That was my thought exactly.

~A5S

[sharkyspoker]

I agree also, I think the price is way out there for this item. I'll let everyone know what the company comes back with on my group buy inquiry.

Sharky

[PokerAce]

A couple of answers about the PokerAce.

First, thanks for the interest.  We received the request for the group buy price and we are reviewing how low we can go with our price for you guys.  We will email Sharky back directly and he can work out the group buy if you guys decide to go ahead.

As for cost.  We are reviewing our costs and discussing if our price is too high.  We used a number of factors to determine our cost, including staying competitve with the Poker Genie.  We were quite surprised to see them drop their price by $20.  I am not sure if that is in response to you guys discovering the fact that they have timing problems or if they are just getting great bulk assembly rates.  In any case, we hope we will be able to bring our price down over time, but we chose in our design to focus on quality at every stage.  For example, our LCD screen costs about 45 times as much as one of the dedicated LCD's on the Poker Genie.  It is our number one price item and we haven't found a way to reduce our cost.  Another example is the size of the memory in our chip.  We found ourselves running out of space in the chip during development.  We felt it was more important to keep the number of existing and customizable structures with the number of levels per structure rather than cheapen the product.  Size has always been a serious issue with our unit, and it has driven the cost up.  We insisted on the width and length of a deck of cards as the form factor for this unit (It is 1 and 1/2 times thicker than a depth of cards, but that couldn't be avoided with the batteries).  That way, it will fit in 99% of all chip cases that can take a deck of cards (the only chip case that it doesn't fit in is the ones that take the cards sideways between the chips).  Keeping this form factor has limited our ability to use cheaper, larger components.

The main factor with cost for us right now is our goal to allow for affiliates, wholesale pricing and licensing deals.  Any reduction at this point would result in us losing these models and allowing only online sales at our site.

As for timing on the unit.  We have tested the unit with many different timers and they are accurate to within 6 seconds per hour.  The more important issue is timing between units, and they are within 2 seconds of each other per hour.  We have often used multiple timers for 2 and 3 table tournaments, and they work great.  We start them all at the same table or call out to everyone to start their timers.  Given the portability of our units, we would expect/hope multiple people at a tournament would have one and therefore, they should work well together.

If you have any questions, you can post them here and I will to answer them regularly, or you can email me directly at mark at pokeraceptd dot com.  My brother and I developed this product because we love poker and we really felt the need for this timer.  We have felt from the beginning that if we made our product the best quality and style out there, there would always be a place in the market for us.  We joked when the prototypes were done, that these could be the 2 most expensive personal poker timers ever, but if all else falied, we had the timers that we wanted.

We are eager and excited to make our timer better, so we would love to hear of any improvements.

Sincerely,

Mark Vaughan
Fearless Game Developers Inc.

[austin5string]

Well, bonus points no doubt for showing up on the boards here to talk about your product and letting us in on some of the hurdles you face with regard to pricing and so on!!

Welcome to the forums.

~A5S

[Dr. Neau]

Size has always been a serious issue with our unit

[ky70]

Well, bonus points no doubt for showing up on the boards here to talk about your product and letting us in on some of the hurdles you face with regard to pricing and so on!!

Welcome to the forums.

~A5S

Agree with John...thanks for sharing with us.

[sharkyspoker]

uhuuuhh uuhhuhhuuh , he said size.

[Dr. Neau]

Well, bonus points no doubt for showing up on the boards here to talk about your product and letting us in on some of the hurdles you face with regard to pricing and so on!!

Welcome to the forums.

~A5S

Agree with John...thanks for sharing with us.

I work with some of the medical device companies in town...hearing a lot of the same challenges.

[Sparty98]

I'm be interested in a group buy.  Let me know how it goes.

[sharkyspoker]

I received a reply back from Mark at Poker Ace. But I had some followup questions for him. Basically he is offering us the timers at $49. We can do a group buy to save on shipping or they are willing to provide a discount code for a limited time where you would order one directly and have it shipped straight to you. I'm waiting to find out where they ship from as by their website it seems they are located in Canada and also if there is a minimum  number of units that need to be purchased for this discounted price.

I'm willing to run a group buy however I have one problem. Depending on the number of units we get I might not have enough of a limit on my visa to make the initial purchase, in which case payment to me would have to be made upfront with your order.

Once I get the answers for my follow up questions I'll post them here. As for now is anyone interested in participating in a group buy at the price of $49?

Sharky

[jasoboe]

I'd take one at that price. Let me know what works.

[Lord Bodak]

I think I'd go for one at that price too.

[ky70]

I received a reply back from Mark at Poker Ace. But I had some followup questions for him. Basically he is offering us the timers at $49. We can do a group buy to save on shipping or they are willing to provide a discount code for a limited time where you would order one directly and have it shipped straight to you...

I think the direct buying/shipping route is less of a headache and how much would the shipping savings be considering double shipping (1st to the GB coordinator and next to the buyer)?

[sharkyspoker]

Ky,
Thats one of the questions I'm awaiting an answer for. Along with do we get the discount if we order seperately or only if we order in bulk. I'll post more info as I get it.

Sharky

[ky70]

I re-read Nutn's review and the more I hear/see the more I like.  Curious to know if created customized schedules would remain on the unit if the batteries are removed and replaced and then the unit is powered back on.

[PokerAce]

The customized schedules are stored in flash memory so they remain regardless of batteries removed, etc.  The stored tournament stay until they are replaced.

[ky70]

The customized schedules are stored in flash memory so they remain regardless of batteries removed, etc.  The stored tournament stay until they are replaced.

Thanks!

[sharkyspoker]

Hey all,
Mark at Poker Ace has been really helpful with getting me info for a bulk buy on this and from what I've figured out is it will roughly be the same price give or take a dollar or two whether you buy directly from them or we have it shipped to me, plus paypal fees for those that would use it, then reshipped to you. Looking at the Poker Ace website they do take MC/Visa.

For those that don't have a CC but do have a Paypal account I will be willing to run a buy for you if you would like to get one of these timers. I'll still require payment before ordering. I think that I'm going to purchase a couple of them to go with my travel sets. I'll ask Mark to either post a discount code here or give it to me to post or whatever way Nut'n would like since I'm not sure what his rules are for a company advertising on here. Nut'n you out there how would you like it done.

If you have any questions let me know.

Sharky

[Sparty98]

I agree with ky70.  I prefer the direct shipping route.  Although, I appreciate sharkyspoker's "take charge attitude".  Either way $49 sounds good to me.  Standing by....

[Lord Bodak]

I'm all for direct shipping since it doesn't sound like we'll save anything the other way.

[sharkyspoker]

Ok guys, I got the discount code and will just let everyone purchase the timer on their own. I want to make sure it's okay with Nut'n for me to post it here so unless I hear differently from him or one of the moderators i will post it first thing Thurs morning. The code will be good until 18 April and according to Mark at Poker Ace it's working correctly for multiple purchases. Thanks for your patience and interest and see you all in the morning.

Sharky

[ky70]

Ok guys, I got the discount code and will just let everyone purchase the timer on their own. I want to make sure it's okay with Nut'n for me to post it here so unless I hear differently from him or one of the moderators i will post it first thing Thurs morning. The code will be good until 18 April and according to Mark at Poker Ace it's working correctly for multiple purchases. Thanks for your patience and interest and see you all in the morning.

Sharky

Sharky,
Thanks for digging into this and getting a great deal...I think I"ll jump on this one and my Poker Genie just might get replaced.

[sharkyspoker]

Hey all,
Ok here is the discount code for the Poker Ace PTD. Nut'n,  If I've jumped the gun by putting this up on the forum without your approval I apologize and will understand if you pull it down. I can pass on the code via PM if necessary.

Discount code is HPTINTRO0407. It will expire sometime on Apr 18th so don't dilly dally around.

As for Mark and the Poker Ace crew, thanks for doing this for the HPTers and be prepared as I'm sure the folks here will give you some great ideas on how to improve your product.

Good luck everyone,
Sharky

[Lord Bodak]

Just placed my order.  $57.04 with the cheapest shipping options, not bad at all.  Looking forward to checking this thing out!

Thanks for organizing all this, Sharky.

[sharkyspoker]

No problem guys, I ordered 2 this morning also, came to $108 with S/H. I'm looking forward to it also. I like the fact you can put 2 customized schedules. I can do one for my main tourneys and one for SNG's .

Woohoo I like new poker toys.

Sharky

[ky70]

I'll be ordering one tomorrow...THANKS SHARKY and POKER ACE

[compudaze]

Great deal. Nutn's review makes this seem very attractive. I may have to jump on this offer as i currently use a kitchen timer.

[Sparty98]

Just ordered mine.  $57.45 straight to the door.  Thank you to everyone who helped make this work.  Well done. 

[Lord Bodak]

Wow... I placed the order this morning and it's already shipped!  Impressive!

[jasoboe]

Ordered mine this morning - thanks Sharky and thanks Mark for such a great offer.  I'll post my impressions when I get it.

[OMG_Beavers]

Just ordered 2 of them... will check it out when they come in

[ky70]

I didn't see this mentioned in Nutn's review or on the PA website, but does this timer allow you to set different time lengths for different blind levels?

For example, I have 20 minute blinds for levels 1 - 6, but then drop to 15 minute blinds for levels 7-10, and then 10 minute blinds for levels 11-13.

Thanks!

[PokerAce]

I didn't see this mentioned in Nutn's review or on the PA website, but does this timer allow you to set different time lengths for different blind levels?

For example, I have 20 minute blinds for levels 1 - 6, but then drop to 15 minute blinds for levels 7-10, and then 10 minute blinds for levels 11-13.

Thanks!

Hey ky70.

No you cannot set individual level times.  The level time is set once for the whole tournament.  In the end, the resolution of the screen did not allow us to include customized level lengths without making the screen unworkably busy.  We were reviewing structures and only found a few that had variable level times, so we chose not to add this feature.  I would love to hear if other people find this an important feature.

Thanks,

Mark.

[nutN2Lewz]

It's a pretty important feature ... and something that I should have mentioned in my review. I have added that information to my review page.

Good luck, nutn

[sharkyspoker]

Recieved both of mine today, wow fast shipping. Started playing around with it and found a couple of little "inconvienences"  When setting a custom schedule I like how when you set the small blind the big blind automatically doubles and the small blind on the next level automatically sets at the current blind level your working on so you don't have to start at 0 for each level. However this feature is not on the Ante section. If you set antes in your tourney you have to start from 0 each time. It goes in increments of 1 until you get to 100 then increments of 5 until about 1000 then to 25's. That part sucked when I was setting  the antes for that latter part of a tourney when the antes were getting up to and over 1000.

The next thing I found is you can't back navigate through the structure screen when setting it. If you want to go back a level to make a change you have to go forward through the entire structure until it resets at the top.

Like I said a couple of small things but so far still beats out a kitchen timer and I like the box it came in. About the size of a Copag set up box. Should help to protect the clock.

Take care,
Sharky

[Sparty98]

Got mine yesterday and after some playing around I really like it.  Ascetically is blows away the Genie IMO.  It takes a little getting used to, but all in all it's great.  The display is clear and the timer isn't too loud.  I'm still playing with the custom blinds but its only a matter of time before I master it.  Very pleased. 

[jasoboe]

Got mine on Wed - very fast shipping.  Overall impression is good.  I've never used a poker Genie, so I dont have anything to compare it to.  It does take a little time to set up or change the blinds, and I dont really need it telling me when to chip up (maybe theres a way to turn that feature off - I still have to play with it some more) but these are really small incoveniences compared to the positives, the biggest being the size and portability.  Looking forward to trying at my next poker night.

[OMG_Beavers]

I too have played with this a little bit.  Hard to edit blind schedules and if you make a mistake you can't go back, have to move forward until it comes back around.  but once you do the leg work to get it set up it's a nice little timer.

[austin5string]

You know what someone really needs to design, is one of these portable timers that comes w/ a little software app and a USB connection to create/load schedules.

[PokerAce]

You know what someone really needs to design, is one of these portable timers that comes w/ a little software app and a USB connection to create/load schedules.

Actually, that was in our first wish list, but we had to cut it due to costs.  We did everything we could to get the costs down, but as I said earlier, making this portable was expensive.  After all, if we couldn't sell the timer, it really doesn't matter how perfect it is.  One thing we did do to make it easier to program was making it so you can save any of the 8 preset tournament structures into the customizable ones first and then editting them.  Has anyone found that helpful? 
Thanks everyone for the comments.  Please feel free to weigh in on how it is during tournaments, carrying in your chipcase, etc.  Also, does anyone who has the Poker Ace PTD also have the PokerGenie?

[Xaveth]

Well, I received my Poker Ace today and I'm very happy with it... here's my take on it:

PROS:
Aesthetics -- This thing is slick and feels nice while the display is clear and bright with its backlit LCD screen. Normally, we host poker tournaments at different homes, so I enjoy knowing I can pack this inside my chip case and forget about it, instead of carrying it around as extra luggage. Also, I'll have no need to find an outlet to plug it into, which is a big plus for me... especially in the summer when we play outside at the patio. Compactness and being battery-operated are the main reasons I went with this over the Genie.

Features -- This timer is packed with features and is going to be very practical at our next tournament. I appreciate the fact that it converts payout percentages into dollars, estimates the length of the game, and let's you know when it's time to Chip Up. The secondary timer showing the next break, amount of time left to rebuy is also a very nice touch. The audio warning letting us know the break is almost over is very practical... especially for those who like to hang around the kitchen still looking for something else to eat. 

Service -- Mark was very helpful and honored the promo discount for me even though I had missed the deadline... a simple email was all it took. On a personal note, it's refreshing to find a business that considers their customer before their profit. It shows integrity in their service and makes me feel secure in the product they stand by.

CONS:
-- As sharkyspoker said, "you can't back navigate through the structure screen when setting it." This is a minor inconvenience, but one that I too wish could've been programmed differently.
-- I wish there was an option to retain your payout structure in memory as part of the tournament structure data. It's great that it initially calculated the percentages based on # of players, but after I alter those percentages I would like it to retain my payout structure as part of my customized tournament.

OVERALL:
All of the detailed reviews I read in this forum convinced me to buy this timer. I put it through the ringer today making sure all of the features worked and was very happy with the results. I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a solid poker timer and it's really a must-have if you're looking for a portable timer.

[Sparty98]

After a few home games of use, I recommend it to anyone thinking of getting one.  The Poker Genie is a Ford Explorer.  Runs well but a little bulky.  The Poker Ace is a Ferrari.  Fast and sleek.  Not easy to drive without a little practice but once mastered; nothing compares.