Shuffle Up and Deal!, usually shortened to SUAD, is a poker tournament management platform designed to take care of the operational side of running live poker. Rather than focusing solely on the tournament clock, the app attempts to bring registration, seating, table management, payouts, leagues, player statistics, displays and live tournament information together in one system.
Built by UK-based AceRiver Studios, SUAD is aimed at a broad range of organisers, from home games and weekly pub leagues through to poker clubs, professional tournament directors and card rooms. The app is currently available for iPhone and iPad and Android.
Its public feature catalogue now lists around 200 tools and capabilities across tournament setup, seating, registration, finance, leagues, venues, displays, player tracking, multi-device operation and tournament rules. https://shuffleup.co.uk/roadmap
The Poker Agent view: Our first impression is that SUAD is trying to solve a bigger problem than displaying the blinds. That ambition is its main strength: a tournament director may be able to manage several recurring jobs from one place. The trade-off is that a very broad feature set can make an app harder to learn. Its success will depend on whether the everyday tasks are easy to find and run when a busy tournament is underway.
Running the whole tournament, not just the clock
At its simplest, SUAD can build a tournament structure, run the blinds and breaks and calculate payouts. The difference is what happens around those basic functions.
A tournament director can configure buy-ins and fees, starting stacks, blind levels, antes, breaks, table sizes, late registration, re-entries, rebuys, add-ons and payouts, then save the configuration as a reusable tournament format. Regular games can therefore be prepared once and launched again without rebuilding the structure every week.
During registration, the app records entries against individual players and maintains the corresponding field size, prize pool, fees and chips in play. Re-entries are recorded separately, while rebuys and add-ons can have their own chip amounts, costs and prize-pool or fee splits. Refunds, withdrawals and registration limits are also handled within the same tournament record.
The clock itself can advance through blind levels and breaks, issue audio or voice notifications and continue showing the current level through the iPhone Lock Screen and Dynamic Island when the director leaves the app.
For a small home tournament, some of this will inevitably be more functionality than is necessary. For a tournament director simultaneously dealing with registrations, late arrivals, table changes, eliminations and player questions, the attraction is that those jobs are being handled from the same tournament record rather than across a clock, spreadsheet, paper seating sheet and calculator.
Seating and table management is one of SUAD’s biggest areas
Seating is one of the more substantial parts of the Shuffle Up and Deal! app.
SUAD can generate the initial seat draw, establish the dealer button, accommodate late arrivals, move players as tables become uneven, break tables as the field contracts and perform a final-table redraw. Directors can choose between different levels of assistance, including prompt-based, assisted, automatic and manual balancing.
When a table needs to break, the app produces the moves needed to distribute players among the remaining tables. A director can still intervene manually, swap seats, assign a specific player to an available seat or undo supported actions when necessary. Capacity is taken into account before the app recommends expanding or consolidating the room.
That matters because table balancing is one of those tournament jobs that looks trivial until a director is running several tables, taking registrations and dealing with everything else happening in the room at the same time.
The Poker Agent view: Seating and balancing look like some of SUAD’s most practical features. They address a real source of interruptions and mistakes for a working director, especially as tables break and players move. The ability to choose how much control to hand over should help different organisers use the system in a way that suits their event. The key test is whether the suggested moves stay clear and easy to apply under pressure.
Registration, money and payouts
SUAD also treats the financial side of the tournament as part of the live operation rather than something that gets calculated separately afterwards.
Buy-ins, re-entries, rebuys and add-ons feed into the running prize pool while retained fees remain separate. The app can accommodate guaranteed prize pools, house contributions, non-cash prizes, refunds, withheld amounts and other adjustments. Payouts can be generated from presets or percentages and then manually changed where required.
There is also a deal calculator supporting equal deals, chip chops, manual agreements and ICM-based calculations. A standalone ICM calculator sits alongside other table tools including hand-equity calculations, main and side-pot calculation and action clocks.
For an organiser, the practical benefit is less about having another poker calculator and more about keeping the money connected to the actual tournament. Changes to the field can update the prize pool and tournament metrics rather than forcing the TD to maintain those figures separately.
Live Tracker: giving players their own view of the tournament
One of SUAD’s more distinctive features is its browser-based Live Tracker.
A tournament can be given a secure public link which players or spectators open on any normal browser. They do not need to install the app or create an account. Depending on the tournament and settings, the page can show the tournament clock, blinds, registration state, field information, seating, payouts, knockouts and league standings.
Players can use it to find their own seat rather than crowding around the tournament director or a single display. During league tournaments, projected points can also be shown against the existing season standings, allowing players to see how the current event is affecting the table before the tournament has finished.
There is an obvious spectator use too. Someone who cannot attend a league night can still follow the state of the tournament remotely.
Demo link: https://shuffleup.co.uk/tournament-live/CnZPsXwMlSC4fEd-2ABDaGXb1t4nmOxE
That was demonstrated recently at a Bristol Poker League final with approximately 60 entries. The tournament organiser shared the live link with the league and reported that players who had not attended the final were still following the event remotely. After the tournament he described SUAD as a “genuine game changer” for how smoothly the final ran and estimated that it had saved approximately 1.5 to 2 hours of tournament administration.
That is arguably a more interesting use case than simply putting the blind clock on someone’s phone. It begins turning a local tournament into something the wider league can follow.
The Poker Agent view: The Live Tracker looks useful because it removes two common barriers: players do not need the app, and spectators do not need to be at the venue. For grassroots games and leagues, that can make a local event easier to follow without asking the organiser to build a separate website or manually post updates. Its usefulness will depend on the information being accurate and the link being easy to share, but the idea fits the needs of recurring community tournaments.
Big-screen tournament displays
For venues with a television or projector, SUAD can also put tournament information onto a larger external display.
On supported devices, the room display can show the clock and blinds, seating, registration information, table layouts, QR codes and tournament milestones. There are dedicated presentation elements for table draws, eliminations and the eventual winner.
Higher tiers add venue customisation such as a venue logo, accent colours, display themes and an announcement ticker. Voice packs can announce blinds, breaks and other tournament milestones through the display.
This is one of the areas where SUAD’s positioning becomes clearer. The aim is not simply to replace a blind timer but to let relatively small poker venues present their game in a way normally associated with a more established poker room.
Leagues, seasons and player history
Recurring poker leagues are another major part of the platform.
A league can have its own season dates and points system, with tournaments automatically feeding results into the standings. SUAD can show a projected leaderboard while the tournament is still running and then incorporate the final points into the completed season once the event ends.
The player database becomes more detailed over time. Profiles can include tournament entries, wins, cashes, final tables, bubbles, finishing positions, winnings, spend, return on investment and knockouts. Statistics can be filtered by league, venue, season or period.
The app also records who eliminated whom, allowing it to build head-to-head knockout histories and recurring rivalries between players. Completed tournaments contribute automatically to longer-term statistics rather than results disappearing into a spreadsheet after game night.
For leagues, that creates an interesting second layer around the game. Results stop being isolated tournament records and become a growing history of the players and venue.
Public venue pages
SUAD extends some of that information outside the app through public venue pages.
A venue can publish its regular schedule, upcoming tournaments, completed results, league standings, statistics, maps and contact information on a browser-based page. Upcoming games can be added to a player’s calendar, and organisers can create QR-code posters that send players directly to the venue page.
When a tournament is running, the venue page can surface the current event and link into its Live Tracker. Venues can also run simple polls for players, such as asking about future formats, buy-ins or schedules.
For a local poker club without the resources to build and maintain its own website, this could be one of the quieter but more useful features in the platform.
Demo link: https://shuffleup.co.uk/venue/the-turn-tavern
The Poker Agent view: Smaller clubs could use a venue page as a simple home for schedules, results, directions and live event links. That is useful if the page stays current and takes little effort to maintain. It is less likely to replace a club’s other channels for reaching players, but it could give organisers one reliable page to share instead of repeatedly sending the same information.
Multi-day poker tournaments
SUAD also supports tournaments that extend beyond a single session.
Multi-day events can be built from multiple starting flights such as Day 1A and Day 1B, with each flight operated as a normal tournament. Qualifying players can then carry their recorded chip stacks into later stages, with a best-stack-forward rule available where a player qualifies more than once.
The system includes digital bagging, flight schedules, qualifier management, flight recaps and consolidated event results. Directors can add or alter future flights while an event is underway, and the eventual tournament record combines the flights into one overall field, prize pool and result.
This functionality is currently reserved for the higher TD Elite and Card Room tiers.
It is a feature that clearly pushes SUAD beyond the requirements of the average pub tournament, but it also suggests where the platform is trying to go long term.
Link to MDT tracker for a demo MDT: https://shuffleup.co.uk/tournament-live/pFkJjvRPww4mFL3GnrgJeiwVV_NFYVKx
TURNER: an AI assistant for tournament directors
Perhaps the most unusual part of SUAD is TURNER, its built-in tournament rules and guidance assistant.
TURNER is specifically scoped around tournament operations rather than general poker strategy. A director can ask a tournament-rules question and receive an explanation with source citations where supporting material is available. The app currently works with Poker TDA rules and can also incorporate house rules configured by the organiser.
There is also a structured Dispute Wizard. Rather than simply asking an open-ended AI question, the director can enter information such as the street, type of dispute and relevant facts before receiving a structured recommendation. Importantly, TURNER does not make changes to the tournament and the tournament director’s ruling remains final.
Privacy has also been considered. The site states that player, league and venue names are replaced with anonymous tokens before an AI request leaves the device, meaning the real names are not sent to the AI service.
TURNER deliberately does not provide poker strategy or hand-analysis advice. Its scope is tournament rules, operations and guidance.
The Poker Agent view: TURNER has a sensible use case if it helps a director find the relevant rule quickly and explains why it applies. Keeping the tool focused on tournament operations, showing source citations and leaving the final ruling with the TD are all important choices. We would treat its answer as guidance to check, especially where house rules or the exact facts of a dispute matter. Its value will come down to the quality of its answers and citations in real situations.
Multiple directors can work on the same tournament
Larger tournaments create another problem: one person may no longer be able to comfortably manage the entire room.
On supported paid tiers, SUAD allows several signed-in devices to work on the same tournament. Registration changes, eliminations, seating changes and clock state can synchronise between directors, while safeguards are used around more sensitive operations such as seating generation and rollback.
Crucially for live venues, the tournament is not designed to stop simply because the internet connection disappears. Supported data remains locally available, with changes queued and synchronised again once a connection returns. Cloud backups and manual backup files add additional recovery options.
That offline-first approach is particularly relevant in pubs, clubs and function rooms where reliable Wi-Fi cannot always be assumed.
Tournament Tape and the story after the event
The platform does not stop when the last player is eliminated.
Completed tournaments are converted into what SUAD calls Tournament Tape, preserving the field, podium, event duration, elimination timeline, final table, payouts and other statistics. Finished events can be exported as images or PDFs and remain part of player, league and venue histories.
It is another example of the platform trying to make the tournament itself reusable content rather than something that disappears when the tables are packed away.
For a league, tournament recaps, winner graphics, standings and player statistics can then feed social media and community engagement without someone manually reconstructing the result afterwards.
Who is SUAD actually for?
The breadth of the feature list means SUAD covers several very different types of user.
| User Type | What They Get |
|---|---|
| Home-game organiser | Free tier for small tournament with clock, tournament builder, seating, balancing and payout calculation. Current free plan supports up to 20 players across two tables and one tournament per week. |
| Weekly tournament director or league | Considerably more value from reusable tournament formats, automated seating and balancing, player histories and league management. |
| Poker clubs and card rooms | Multi-device operation, external displays, venue branding, financial reporting, public pages and multi-day tournament support. |
The current paid range starts with the Tournament Director tier at £13.99 per month, followed by TD Pro, TD Elite and a Card Room plan. Features and capacity vary between tiers, with Live Share links and custom venue displays beginning at TD Pro, while multi-day events are included on TD Elite and Card Room. All paid plans currently include a one-week trial.
The Poker Agent view: The strongest value case appears to be a recurring league or venue that runs regular events and spends real time on registration, seating, results and player communication. A casual home game may be well served by the free tier, but is less likely to need the wider feature set. For paid plans, the practical question is whether the time saved and the better-organised player experience justify the monthly cost for that particular organiser.
What SUAD is not
It is worth drawing an important distinction.
SUAD is not an online poker platform, casino game or player strategy app. It is operational software for people running live tournaments.
That means a lot of its value depends on scale.
Someone running an occasional ten-player home game may never need player rivalries, venue pages, multiple tournament directors, external displays or multi-day flights. A league director managing several tables, regular players, results and repeated events has a very different workload.
The question is therefore less whether every poker game needs software like SUAD and more whether the time and administration it removes are worth the cost for a particular organiser.
The Bristol Poker League example is useful because it gives that question a measurable answer in one real tournament. Saving an estimated 1.5 to 2 hours across a 60-player final is a substantially different proposition from buying software simply to display the blinds.
The Poker Agent verdict
SUAD’s clearest strength is the range of tournament jobs it aims to bring together. A blind clock is only one part of the product; registration, seating, balancing, payouts, league standings, player history and live updates all connect to the same event.
That can make a real difference for organisers who run regular tournaments and currently split the work across a clock, spreadsheet, paper records and separate communication channels. Features such as the Live Tracker, shared tournament operation and venue pages also give players and spectators more ways to follow what is happening.
The scope does raise a practical question: whether the app feels straightforward when a tournament is moving quickly. The feature catalogue is extensive, and the day-to-day basics need to stay easy to find. TURNER is an interesting addition, provided directors treat its sourced guidance as support and keep the final ruling in their own hands.
For a one-off home game, SUAD may offer more than the organiser needs. For a weekly league, poker club or card room that manages several tables, registrations and recurring results, the broader system makes more sense. The Bristol Poker League example gives a useful indication of the potential value, though each organiser will need to judge the time saved against the price and the way their own events run.
Based on the features described here, SUAD is worth a look for tournament directors who want more of the administration handled in one system. Its promise is not simply a better way to show the blinds; it is a more connected way to run a live tournament.
Shuffle Up and Deal! – Conclusion
Shuffle Up and Deal! has clearly moved beyond being a poker blind timer.
The core clock, blind structures and payouts are there, but they sit inside a much broader attempt to manage the tournament as one connected operation: players arrive, seats are drawn, tables are balanced, money is tracked, eliminations build the final result, league points update, displays inform the room, spectators follow remotely and the finished tournament becomes part of a longer player and venue history.
The most interesting aspect may be the market SUAD is targeting. Professional poker rooms have long had access to dedicated tournament infrastructure. At the opposite end of the game, thousands of weekly tournaments are still being run with combinations of paper sheets, spreadsheets, standalone clocks and the tournament director’s memory.
SUAD is attempting to bring those two worlds closer together.
Whether every local game needs that level of technology is debatable. But for organisers who regularly find themselves simultaneously running the clock, registering players, moving seats, calculating payouts, answering questions and updating league standings, the proposition is easy to understand:
let the software handle more of the administration, so the tournament director can spend more time actually running the tournament.
For more interesting poker software, keep checking our online poker tools catalogue.
