Switching from Blind Valet to Marquee Poker

Why operators move from Blind Valet

The most common reasons we hear from operators evaluating a switch:

• League / season scoring with formulas. BV is timer-first. Marquee ships league + season schemas, custom scoring formulas with live points-curve preview, and tiebreaker rules. If you're trying to track points across a series of weekly tournaments, this is the headline reason to move.
• Cash-game waitlist. BV doesn't ship one. Marquee has a per-stake waitlist with its own TV display, walk-in entry, and player QR self-signup.
• Multi-role staff. When the room grows past one operator, BV has no role split. Marquee separates owner / admin / floor manager — floor managers can run live tournaments but can't reconfigure or change billing.
• Multiple displays per tournament. Mount one TV near the action and another at the bar showing the same tournament — both stay in sync. BV is one timer per tournament view.
• Mystery bounties + random-target bounties. Marquee ships mystery envelope distributions revealed at KO, plus the random-target bounty mode for charity nights.
• Audit log. Every operator action — buy-in, rebuy, bust, payout edit, seat move — gets a server-side timestamped log entry. Useful when a player asks "wait, when did that happen?"

Feature-by-feature comparison

Green-bordered rows: areas where Marquee leads. Amber: where Blind Valet legitimately wins today. Grey: parity.

• ✓
  League / season scoring + formula editor

  Multi-tournament league scoring with operator-defined formulas, live per-rank points curve preview as you type, configurable tiebreakers, attendance bonuses, ITM bonuses. BV is a timer; league scoring isn't its scope.
• ✓
  Cash-game waitlist (built in)

  Per-stake queue, walk-in or QR self-signup, dedicated TV display showing "Up next: 4 waiting at $1/$2 NL". BV doesn't ship cash-game features.
• ✓
  Multi-role staff (owner / admin / floor manager)

  Owners control billing + permissions; admins configure tournaments; floor managers run live tournaments without touching setup. Server-side enforced via row-level security. BV doesn't split roles within a workspace.
• ✓
  Multiple displays per tournament

  Pair as many TVs as your plan allows (3 on Pro, unlimited on Enterprise) to one tournament. All TVs stay in sync via realtime — bust a player and every screen updates within a second.
• ✓
  Multi-operator real-time sync

  Multiple floor managers and admins run the same tournament from different devices simultaneously. Every action propagates instantly. BV is single-operator per tournament view.
• ✓
  Mystery bounties + random-target bounty

  Operator-defined envelope distribution; revealed at KO. Random-target bounty for charity events. Standard + progressive KO modes also supported.
• ✓
  Audit log of every operator action

  Every player added, eliminated, seated, busted, payout edit — server-side timestamped log with the actor's identity. UI viewer ships next.
• ✓
  Multi-day tournaments + bag-and-tag printing

  Multi-day events get a printable per-player bag-and-tag report with chip count, next-day seat, signature line. Multiple sessions for double-bag (3-day) / triple-bag (4-day) events.
• ✓
  Auto table balancing + auto final-table redraw

  Algorithm-suggested seat moves to even out tables. When the field shrinks to the final table, players auto-consolidate to one table without an operator click.
• ✓
  Drag-and-drop seat reassignment

  Drag a player from one seat to another to move them. Drag onto an occupied seat to swap. Per-player seat locks (admin/owner) prevent accidental moves of locked players (e.g. dealers).
• ≈
  Cloud / cross-device access

  Both run in any browser. Both work on phone / tablet / laptop. Both have responsive mobile views.
• ≈
  Blind structures + level controls

  Both ship blind structure templates, breaks, ante options, custom level durations. Marquee adds an auto-suggest dialog (enter expected entries + target duration + pace, get a generated structure).
• ≈
  Free tier for home games

  Both have free tiers suitable for solo home-game runners. Marquee Free: 1 tournament, 1 display. BV's free tier is similarly home-game scoped.
• !
  Onboarding speed for first-time users

  BV is intentionally simpler — fewer concepts to learn. If you're running a casual weekly home game with no league math, no cash-game waitlist, and one TV, BV's surface area is smaller and you'll be set up faster.
• !
  Maturity in the home-game niche

  BV has been the friendly home-game timer for years and has refined polish at exactly that scope. Marquee is younger and aimed at the room that's outgrown a timer; if "outgrown" doesn't describe you, BV's narrower scope may stay the right fit.

How to migrate

Marquee and BV both store data in the cloud, so migration is forward-only — no file imports involved. The realistic path:

• Set up your tournament template once. Configure your standard buy-in, blind structure, payout structure, and chipset on Marquee. Save it as a Profile (one-click recall). Takes 10–20 minutes.
• Player roster. If you've got a player list in BV, export it (BV supports CSV export). Import into Marquee on the Players page. AI-assisted column mapping is on the roadmap so you don't have to hand-map fields.
• Run your next tournament on Marquee. Most operators we've talked to switch on the next event rather than mid-event. Confidence builds over 1–2 tournaments.
• League points history. If you're partway through a season on BV with active points standings, decide whether to (a) finish the season on BV and start the next on Marquee, or (b) re-enter past results on Marquee to keep the season continuous. Re-entering 6–8 historical events takes ~30 minutes; only worth it for active league seasons that are months from finishing.

If you're running a multi-month league with 50+ players and complex scoring, ping us via the in-app feedback flow before switching mid-season. We can usually advise on a clean cutover.