15/09/2026
Disclaimer: All products I use are purchased or already owned by myself for the sole intention of using for the business if I find them suitable. Reviews are based solely on my experiences with them in the course of the business. I have not been paid for, nor currently asked to review in return for products unless otherwise stated
Links provided at the end.
Review #11
Today’s offering is another poker tournament management app and this time it’s Shuffle Up and Deal - Poker Tournament Manager by Ace River Studios.
It offers various tier subscriptions ranging in price from free up to £599.99 with each plan giving more options available to use and all upgraded plans have a 1 week free trial and reduced prices if paid for annually.
My review is going to based on the Tournament Director plan at 13.99
Home Game - the base free plan offers:
1 tournament per week.
2 blind stuctures.
2 saved formats. ( a freezeout/rebuy/rentry etc )
1 signed in device.
Maximum of 40 players in there database.
Maximum of 20 players per game over 2 tables.
1 saved venue.
Table draw and balancing.
Button draw.
There are no re-buys/re-entry/add-ons.
No casting only the clock screen to a TV.
You can still mirror the app via Airplay/HDMI cable but everything you do will seen by all the players.
The Tournament Director 13.99p/m or £139.99 with a 17% discount via an annual purchase.
This gives you:
Unlimited player database.
Unlimited players per tournament.
Unlimited number of tables.
3 tournaments a week.
1 league structure.
5 blind structures.
5 format options, re-buys, add-ons, late reg.
Knock-out tracking, prize boosts, non-cash prizes,chops.
Screen-Cast the tournament clock game to TV and Projector screens
Device Multi-Sync. 2 Signed-in devices running the same game. So one is locked to displaying the clock screen and the other lets you control all the other aspects of the game from player movement, knock-outs, re-draws and prize money.
Voice announcements for game events.
Player and league stats. knock-out, bubble, ITM animations, cloud back-up.
Table tools. Shot-clock, action clock for those that take forever to decide, ICM deal maker, split pot and hand equity calculators.
Each upgraded teir gives a little more, increased number of tournaments, structures, formats, venues, book-keeping, more devices, live link for players to see the game info on their phones, being able to run more than one tournament at a time, tournament history, cloud back-up and priority support and an option to create a link to your own venues web page on the ShuffleUp website.
The Home Screen gives you instant access to creating blind structures either by making your own or using the ‘Wizard’ for a quick build, your player database, game ‘Format’ templates, starting a tournament from scratch and settings.
It also gives you a few guides on how to set things up.
As well as the Table Tools like shot clock set-up and ICM calculator.
Recent tournament info like current Knock-out leader, biggest payout, average fields, prize money paid out etc.
Creating a new tournament is quite straightforward and the system takes you through it step-by-step for tournament name, buy-ins, structures including using either individual, Big Blind Antes or none, prizes, point system pre-set, table name, generating seating which can be viewed by table or alphabetical listing.
If you create your player data base before creating a game it gives you a ‘quick add’ option for registering players but you have to do this one by one, there is no option to ‘add-all’ or ‘Buy-in all” players. Although creating new players in the registration screen is not slow.
Once you game is created there is a selection of tabs to select to view overall info where you can open the clock display cast to external display ( make sure you are already in Mirroring you screen via Airplay or HDMI cable, a players tab, to add re-buy/ add-ons/ refunds/knockouts for each player, a separate clock for the TD to pause/re-start the clock and view blind structure. Prize money info, current standings, an time-line events log of all actions performed during the game and a settings tab.
As well as the table draw function there is a ‘Button Draw’ function with animation on the main screen for all to see.
Other features include player movement and table breaking, re-draw for Final Table.
The main Clock screen displays all the information needed to follow the game. Level number, current and next blinds, entries, re-buys, eliminations, late reg info, eliminations til Final Table, tables in play, average stack in Chips and Big Blinds, chips in play, most knock-outs, places paid, min cash, and current player standings.
There is another good addition to the app in the guise of TURNER, an AI assistant for ettiquette and rule disputes that cites The TDA rule book for its ruling explanations. Especially useful for new TD’s or to prove to those stubborn people that think they know better and just want to argue.
Not as useful for me as I’ve been using the TDA rules for a long while but it’s there as a reference if needed.
There are some event animations for player eliminations, on the bubble, ITM and Winner. While fun not really that necessary.
I was not able to test all the features like 2 tourneys at once or live sharing as I only selected what I thought was a comparable plan to my BlindsUp app. I should have chosen the Card Room plan then cancelled before the end of the free trial.
As it is the testing I’ve done is enough to give a detailed review for what most TD’s will need.
Pros:
Lots and lots of features.
Works offline, no internet connection needed.
Relatively easy to use.
The main clock is a clean and clear design, laid out quite well and looks
like what casino might display.
Great additions like shot clock, action clock, ICM, pot and equity calculators.
Lots of stats
Multi-device sync.
Cons:
The AI voice announcements at the ‘one minute warning’ ‘new level’ and ‘break’ are clear but a little weird, it sounds like three different voices in higher and lower pitches even though you may have only selected one voice in the settings.
Sometimes the sounds did not play if I haven’t touched the iPad in a while or if you turn notifications off.
The base alarms sounds definitely need expanding, to just have 2 sounds that are either too short and quiet for end-of-level or too overpowering for a 1-min warning without being able to allocate either to a specific event is frustrating.
I think the game creation screen needs to be full-sized as it was annoying to touch outside that area and be asked if you want to cancel or keep editing, especially if you’re just trying to scroll the screen up or down.
I don’t think its needs 2 prize-pool sections on the main screen.
It needs the option round up prize-pool amounts to nearest £1, £5, £10.
Lack of customisation for the game screen is disappointing, even if it’s just background colour schemes and font choices. I’m Colour-Blind so I don’t always see the same colours as other and this can make some details harder for me to see.
The clock font does annoy me because as it is counting down it slightly expands and contracts in size with each number.
Overall:
It’s a fantastic app, packed full of things you need to run a proper game.
The Multi-device sync is really good.
It’s quite easy to use.
It can be a little frustrating to go back and forth through menus to find what you you’re looking for.
Not enough sounds for alarms and voices are a little inconsistent.
This does a few things better than my current solution BlindsUp and that does some things better than this.
Shuffle Up has a comparable depth of features to BlindsUp, Blinds Are Up (android), and Blinds Valet (internet browser needed).
It’s not quite Tournament Director or Poker Supervisor but it’s certainly more modern and a damn lot easier to use and clearly wouldn’t be as expensive as Table Captain by Atlas.
I applaud the developers for such a well thought out solution wish them the best on the journey to make it better.
Unfortunately to get the tier that is comparable to my BlindsUp subscription, which would be £24.99 p/m or £250 p/y, which will cost me 5 times the price and I cannot justify that at the moment.
I will stick with £14 subscription to help with any app development issues or bugs and to keep up to date to test new features.
Verdict: 9.5/10
In terms of what it does it’s top notch. Shuffle Up and Deal is on par with BlindsUp in my opinion. They are the 2 best apps. It’s not quite enough to persuade me to fully swap over…..yet.
Website - www.shuffleup.co.uk
