Online Home Poker (8 Viewers)

[Mr Tree]

Run the server in AWS ... no fuss and free for a year.

I’m fairly illiterate here. What is AWS?

 

[boltonguy]

Amazon Web Services - you can run a windows server in their cloud for free for a year and run the Poker Mavens software on it. That's what many of us are doing with Mavens. It does take some tech knowledge to set up but there is a lot of help here on the forum - this thread has lots of good info.

 

[Poker4ever]

Amazon Web Services - you can run a windows server in their cloud for free for a year and run the Poker Mavens software on it. That's what many of us are doing with Mavens. It does take some tech knowledge to set up but there is a lot of help here on the forum - this thread has lots of good info.

Craig got a set up file he made that's essentially follow and its up and running in no time. Very easy instructions to run AWS. And you don't use your bandwidth and more secure on AWS.

 

[Poker4ever]

Your tournament settings might end up being vastly different than my settings, which might be drastically different than the next person's settings, depending on what you are trying to accomplish (rebuys, add-ons, steepness of blind levels, desired tournament length, etc.). So I'm not sure that sending you a list of settings will give you what you are looking for.

If you want, PM me with a summary of what type of tournament you want to run and I can give you some suggested settings. In your PM please include the following info:

• freeze-out or re-buy?
• tournament entry cost? (and is all money going to players, or are you raking some?)
• if re-buy tourney, then number of rebuys allowed? and cost of each re-buy (same or different than entry cost)?
• do you need to bust to rebuy? and if no, at what number of chips can you still rebuy?
• length of rebuy period? (in hours/minutes or blind levels)
• how many players are you expecting, and how long do you want it to run?
• do you want a "turbo" style with quick blind increases and short blind levels, or a more slow paced and gradual style? (My online tournaments run about 4 hours, with 15 minute blinds, and play much like a live event. Other players have 2 hour or even 1 hour tournaments, with 5 minute blinds and steep level increases. Where are you on this spectrum?)
• How often do you want to have breaks, and for how long?
• How do you want to start the game? Manually when everybody is logged in and ready, or at a set time (regardless if players are there), or when a set number of players are logged in and registered?
• Does the tournament run repeatedly whenever there are players logged in and wanting to play (sit and go) or is this more of an occasional (one or more times a week) home game that you schedule for a given time or day of the week?
• What do you want to do if a player has paid up but is a no-show? Turf him after a few minutes, turf him after an hour in case he might show up, or blind him off until he is gone? (Turfing him removes his entry fee from the prize pool, letting him stay allows a non-player to make it to the money)
• How much time do you want to allow a player to act? (some people prefer a fast "Turbo style" of around 15 seconds, others prefer a "live game" feel and allow up to a minute.)

As you can see, there is a lot to consider about how you want to set up your game, and each decision will have an impact on the flavor of the game. I haven't even mentioned starting stack, which affects (and is affected by) decisions of game length, blind time, level steepness, etc.

Not meaning to overwhelm you here, and it is certainly possible to run a tournament with mostly default settings and you will still have fun. But giving a little thought as to how you want your tourney to run will give you a much more satisfying experience (IMO).

Thanks buddy.

 

[Mr Tree]

Craig got a set up file he made that's essentially follow and its up and running in no time. Very easy instructions to run AWS. And you don't use your bandwidth and more secure on AWS.

Very cool, where would one reference this mythical file?

 

[Mr Tree]

Is the basic plan ok for using AWS?

 

[Mr Tree]

Ok blundering my way through this. Created a basic account. Made an EC2 connection to Amazon Linux 2 AMI but now am in something that looks like a DOS input screen and am completely lost.

 

[Poker4ever]

Ok blundering my way through this. Created a basic account. Made an EC2 connection to Amazon Linux 2 AMI but now am in something that looks like a DOS input screen and am completely lost.

I sent you Craig setup file.

 

[Mr Tree]

I sent you Craig setup file.

Great, thanks

 

[waddadonk]

AWS gurus: I configured the EC2 instance on my account.

Is there a way to:
1. Spin down an instance automatically after X hours, or at a certain time? (To manage charges)
2. Allow someone else to spin up this specific instance without having them log into my amazon account? (To start up games without needing me at the computer)

 

[Pairzilla]

Just curious, most everyone in here is either on mavens or pokerrr. I understand why most would choose mavens but why pokerrr over pokerbros? Poker bros seems way more polished imo and I've had success so far running a club on there. Am I missing something about pokerbros? I've definitely been on the fence about buying mavens pro.

 

[jja412]

No way to do this. From the developer - sit down and quickly sit out. Only way.

Update to version 6.16. You can now pause the table and everyone can choose a seat / buy-in. Then un-pause when you get what you consider an acceptable number ready to go.

 

[davin]

Anyone’s using PokerBros

 

[rjbf65]

Pokerrrr2, Zoom, and Venmo has gotten my old college crew playing poker again. We all live hours away from each other and after seeing threads about it on here I decided to reach out to them. We have played a few cash games and we love it. Normally we play cards 2 or 3 times per year and now we are talking about doing it online once a month and live when we can. We are all mad that it took a pandemic and a quarantine to think of this.

 

[CraigT78]

AWS gurus: I configured the EC2 instance on my account.

Is there a way to:
1. Spin down an instance automatically after X hours, or at a certain time? (To manage charges)
2. Allow someone else to spin up this specific instance without having them log into my amazon account? (To start up games without needing me at the computer)

If you have used a free server version - t2.micro - there shouldn't be any charges. I've had my server up since March 28th. No need to take it down for anything.

 

[DuffCal]

Amazon Web Services - you can run a windows server in their cloud for free for a year and run the Poker Mavens software on it. That's what many of us are doing with Mavens. It does take some tech knowledge to set up but there is a lot of help here on the forum - this thread has lots of good info.

If I was able to do it, anyone can. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me as I just set mine up yesterday.

 

[DuffCal]

Is the basic plan ok for using AWS?

That is what I set mine upon. So far I haven't had any issues with the free (t2.micro) AWS.

 

[waddadonk]

If you have used a free server version - t2.micro - there shouldn't be any charges. I've had my server up since March 28th. No need to take it down for anything.
View attachment 439328

Ah, I see a small charge there due to the Elastic IP address setup ($0.005/hr its up). I had done that because I misread the 750 free hours as annual instead of monthly! Whoops, so I guess I can take off the IP setup and just leave the machine running...

 

[CraigT78]

Ah, I see a small charge there due to the Elastic IP address setup ($0.005/hr its up). I had done that because I misread the 750 free hours as annual instead of monthly! Whoops, so I guess I can take off the IP setup and just leave the machine running...

If you leave that - it's only $3.75 per month. You don't need it - but it's not like you are gonna go broke over it!

 

[BearMetal]

That is what I set mine upon. So far I haven't had any issues with the free (t2.micro) AWS.

"Free-for-a-year" plan with t2.micro has worked for me for 3 weeks playing 1 cash game and 1 tourny.

 

[DuffCal]

"Free-for-a-year" plan with t2.micro has worked for me for 3 weeks playing 1 cash game and 1 tourny.

I am curious about what the 'max' number of tables & players is for the t2.micro. Does anyone know?

I was going to see if it was possible to upgrade to a more powerful server but I don't think that's possible. I think I would have to start a brand new server which is disappointing since it took me quite a long time to setup.

 

[CraigT78]

I am curious about what the 'max' number of tables & players is for the t2.micro. Does anyone know?

I was going to see if it was possible to upgrade to a more powerful server but I don't think that's possible. I think I would have to start a brand new server which is disappointing since it took me quite a long time to setup.

I 'upgraded' to a t3.micro. You can do so in the AWS console.
Stop your server - do NOT terminate - this will remove your server forever.
Then do this - Instance Settings - Change to T2/T3
Start your server.
Note your new IP address.

 

[BearMetal]

I am curious about what the 'max' number of tables & players is for the t2.micro. Does anyone know?

I was going to see if it was possible to upgrade to a more powerful server but I don't think that's possible. I think I would have to start a brand new server which is disappointing since it took me quite a long time to setup.

I'm not sure if you can just swap instance types at-will. Perhaps you can create an image snapshot of your current instance and then deploy a new, more powerful instance using that snapshot as the image. With my 2 games running, the CPU was at about 20% average.

 

[DuffCal]

I 'upgraded' to a t3.micro. You can do so in the AWS console.
Stop your server - do NOT terminate - this will remove your server forever.
Then do this - Instance Settings - Change to T2/T3
Start your server.
Note your new IP address.
View attachment 439420
View attachment 439417

Got it, thanks.

I currently have the 't2.micro' but was thinking maybe I should upgrade to 't2.medium'. My concern was what is the max number of tables and players that the 't2.micro' can handle.

 

[CraigT78]

Got it, thanks.

I currently have the 't2.micro' but was thinking maybe I should upgrade to 't2.medium'. My concern was what is the max number of tables and players that the 't2.micro' can handle.

I run 4-5 cash tables and 3-5 tournament tables at a time. Many players multi-table. No issues at all. I've had 45 folks logged in at once and the only issues is people who have crappy wi-fi at home.

 

[boltonguy]

^^^^^ Windy Crest is the best!

 

[DuffCal]

I run 4-5 cash tables and 3-5 tournament tables at a time. Many players multi-table. No issues at all. I've had 45 folks logged in at once and the only issues is people who have crappy wi-fi at home.

Thats good to hear! I hope someday I get 45 players on my online poker room! Thanks for the info!

^^^^^ Windy Crest is the best!

Yes, @CraigT78 Windy Crest is awesome! It is very well done and extremely nice of someone to spend the money and time to get this set up for everyone.

I got a table created for my poker room. I just wanted to share it and get people's thoughts.

 

[CraigT78]

I got a table created for my poker room. I just wanted to share it and get people's thoughts.

Very nice!

 

[BearMetal]

I got a table created for my poker room. I just wanted to share it and get people's thoughts.

Cool! Any thoughts on dropping the city silhouette and making it looking a little cleaner with just the logo? BTW, I'm guessing this is the gold or pro version that lets you customize it?

 

[DuffCal]

Cool! Any thoughts on dropping the city silhouette and making it looking a little cleaner with just the logo? BTW, I'm guessing this is the gold or pro version that lets you customize it?

I will ask for a version without the skyline. It may be too cluttered with the skyline.

Yes, I have the PRO version but I am going to upgrade to the GOLD version this week I think. It is nice to be able to remove the branding.