Seating

The seating board, randomizing, manual swaps, why "Start Tournament" is blocked until tables are balanced, and how the app breaks and combines tables during play.

Seating is Player Mode only. Count Mode does not track individuals, so there is nobody to seat, and Clock Mode has no players at all.

You reach the board from the Tournament tab with Seat Players. It stays disabled until you have at least one table and at least one bought-in player, and it will tell you so: “Add a table and mark at least one buy-in to seat players.”

Tables, players, and the seating board.

The board

Your tables are drawn as ovals, with seat 1 at the top and the rest running clockwise. Everyone waiting for a chair sits in the Unseated tray.

• Randomize deals everyone into random seats. This is what you want almost every time.
• Clear empties every seat and returns everyone to the tray.
• Drag a player onto a seat to place them by hand. Drop them onto an occupied seat and the two players swap. Drag someone back to the tray to unseat them.
• List view swaps the ovals for a plain table of Player / Table / Seat. This is the view you want when you are reading seat assignments out loud to the room.

The counter at the top (8/9 seated) tells you where you are.

Start is blocked until everyone is seated and the tables are balanced

This trips people up, so it is worth stating plainly.

You cannot start a Player Mode tournament with an empty seat assignment or lopsided tables. If you try, the Ready badge will say “Seat all players - N still unseated” or “Tables must be balanced before the tournament can start.”

The tray also warns you directly: ⚠ Tables are unbalanced - even them out to save.

You can leave the board half-finished and come back to it, though. If you try to leave with unsaved changes it offers Save & Exit, Exit without Saving, or Keep Editing, and reminds you that Start stays blocked until the job is done.

The dealer button

Press Start and, before the clock appears, the app asks one last thing:

Randomly assign the dealer button?

The app picks a seat, tells you which, and then starts the clock.

Say Yes and it picks a seat at random and shows you: “Seat 4 has the dealer button.” Announce it, put the button down, and hit Start Tournament. Back re-rolls it if you want another draw, and Cancel returns you to setup without starting.

Say No and it starts immediately. It is an offer, not a step.

Two things worth knowing.

The same seat number is used at every table. If seat 4 gets the button, it is seat 4 at table one, seat 4 at table two, and so on. That is why the app only ever picks a number that exists at every table in play: with a nine-seat table and a six-seat table, it will never name seat 8, because table two has no seat 8. Nobody has to work out an exception.

It is informational only. The app tells you the seat and then forgets it. It does not track the button, move it around the table as hands are played, or reason about it in any way. It is doing the job of drawing a card for the button, and nothing more.

Count Mode has no seats, so it skips this and goes straight to the clock.

During the tournament

Seating is never final. Press m on the live screen (or the Manage Seating button) to open the same board mid-event. In live mode any arrangement is saveable, because the app assumes you have a reason.

The same board, mid-tournament.

One difference: when you hit Randomize during play, it consolidates everyone onto the fewest tables that will fit, rather than spreading them across every table you own.

The three things the app does for you as players bust

As the field shrinks, the app watches the tables and offers to fix them. It always asks. It never rearranges the room behind your back, because you are the one who has to explain it to the players.

They fire in this order of priority.

1. Combine to the final table

“Down to 9 players - combine onto the final table? Seats are redrawn at random.”

Triggered when the field hits your Combine Final Table number (or, if you left that blank, when everyone would fit at your biggest table). Accept and everyone is redrawn at random onto one table, and the seating board opens in list view so you can read out the new seats.

The final table combine prompt.

2. Break a table

“Down to 14 players - break Table 3 and reseat its 4 player(s) at open seats on the other tables?”

Offered when you are running three or more tables and the field has shrunk enough to drop one. Only the players from the broken table move; everybody else stays exactly where they are, which is what players expect and what keeps the peace.

Since the Paid tier caps you at two tables, in practice this is a Premium event.

3. Even out the tables

“Table 1 is running ahead. Move Dave Wilson to Table 2, seat 4.”

Fires when one table has two or more players fewer than another. You can Move the suggested player, Pick someone else, or Dismiss it and deal with it later.

The app suggests the move; you approve it.

If you dismiss a prompt

Nothing is lost. The live screen keeps a passive warning you can click whenever you are ready:

• ⚠ Can break a table
• ⚠ Tables uneven
• ⚠ N player(s) need a seat

That last one appears when someone is in the tournament but has no chair, which can happen if you late-register more players than you have open seats. They are still in the event, they have still paid, and they still count toward the prize pool. They just need a seat when one opens.