Switching from Tournament Director to Marquee Poker

Why operators move from TD

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

• Multi-operator setup. TD runs one machine at a time. Two floor managers = two installs with no shared state. Marquee runs in any browser; multiple operators see the same tournament with realtime sync.
• Mobile floor manager. TD's UI is desktop-only. Marquee is responsive — floor manager runs the room from a phone or tablet while the operator sits at the desk.
• TV display flexibility. TD's display path assumes a second monitor on the same machine. Marquee pairs any TV (any browser, no specific hardware) to the tournament via a 6-character code — no Apple TV / Chromecast lock-in.
• Cash-game waitlist. TD doesn't ship one. Marquee has a built-in cash-game waitlist with its own TV display and player QR self-signup.
• Cloud backup. TD saves to a `.tdt` file on disk. Lose the laptop, lose the tournament. Marquee data is in Postgres with point-in-time recovery on the Pro plan.

Feature-by-feature comparison

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

• ✓
  Multi-operator real-time sync

  Multiple floor managers and admins share one tournament. Bust a player on the laptop, the phone-based floor view updates instantly. TD is single-operator by design.
• ✓
  Cloud SaaS — works in any browser

  Sign in from any device — laptop, phone, tablet, the TV's browser. No install, no Windows-only constraint. TD requires a Windows install per machine.
• ✓
  TV pairing via QR code

  Open a TV browser, scan the 6-digit code from the admin, tournament shows. Works on any TV that can open a URL — no Apple TV, no Chromecast required.
• ✓
  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". TD doesn't ship cash-game features.
• ✓
  Mystery bounties + random-target bounty

  Operator-defined envelope distribution; revealed at KO. Random-target bounty for charity events. TD has standard + progressive bounties; mystery bounties are not native.
• ✓
  Modern formula editor with live points-curve preview

  Type a formula, watch the per-rank points curve update in real time. Click-to-insert variables, inline error highlighting, six built-in presets. TD has a formula engine but the editor is utilitarian.
• ✓
  Audit log of every operator action

  Every player added, eliminated, seated, busted, payout edit — server-side timestamped log with the actor's identity. Pre-built in our schema; 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.
• ✓
  Free tier for home games

  $0 forever for solo home-game runners (1 tournament, 1 display). Pro at $9.99/mo for card rooms. TD is $130 one-time per machine — no free tier.
• ≈
  Blind structures + auto-suggest

  Both ship blind structure templates. Marquee adds an auto-suggest dialog: enter expected entries + target duration + pace, get a generated structure. TD has more granular per-level controls.
• ≈
  Audio cues + voice announcements

  Both support sound cues for level changes, warnings, breaks. Marquee's TTS uses the browser's speech synthesis (zero-cost, instant); TD ships pre-recorded MP3s with custom upload support.
• !
  Custom layout editor (token system)

  TD ships a powerful layout editor with custom tokens, conditional rendering, screen sets, banner sets. Marquee has preset layouts (Classic / Sidebar) with per-section toggles today; a v1 visual layout editor is on the roadmap.
• !
  Multi-language UI

  TD ships in English, Spanish, French, and other locales. Marquee is English-only today; i18n + Spanish/French is on the Phase G roadmap.
• !
  Years of edge-case polish

  TD has 14+ years of release notes and bug fixes for every weird tournament situation a director has hit. Marquee is younger; we ship fast and run a public bug-reports board to triage in the open. We'll never have TD's release-history depth, but we close fewer cuts to first-version detail.

How to migrate

Honest answer: there's no one-click TD-to-Marquee importer today. The data shapes overlap but TD's `.tdt` files don't have a clean export, and the value of porting historical tournaments is mostly emotional. The realistic migration is forward-only:

• 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.
• Roster import. Export your TD player list to CSV (TD supports this on the Players tab). 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 both. Most operators we've talked to switch incrementally — run the next monthly on Marquee, keep TD as a fallback. Confidence builds over 2–3 events.
• Past tournament archives. Keep TD installed for read-access to old `.tdt` files. There's no benefit to porting them — the value of historical tournaments is in your memory and your players' rankings, both of which transfer naturally as you keep playing.

If you're running a league with active points standings on TD, ping us via the in-app feedback flow before switching mid-season — we can usually advise on a clean cutover.