A generation ahead of The Tournament Director
The Tournament Director is a Windows desktop program from 2004: a design largely unchanged since the mid-2000s, and not a single update since 2021. Blind Valet is a cloud platform under active development: one live tournament, accessible from every device at the table, by tournament staff and players alike.
Free plan for small games. No install, no credit card.
Two generations of tournament software
This is not a feature race. The Tournament Director does the essentials well, and Blind Valet covers them too. The difference is the architecture underneath, and everything that follows from it.
The desktop era
The Tournament Director, first released 2004
- An interface that has changed little since the mid-2000s: the same tab strip and gray dialogs, screenshot for screenshot, from 2008 to today.
- One Windows PC owns the tournament. The clock is wherever that PC is, and so is the operator.
- Extra screens mean extra monitors cabled to the same machine.
- Sharing results means exporting HTML files or uploading to third-party league sites.
- Data lives on a hard drive. Backups are your job.
- New versions are occasional paid upgrades, and there has not been one since early 2021.
The cloud era
Blind Valet
- The tournament lives in the cloud. Every device is a live window into it.
- Clock on the TV, controls on your phone, a tablet at the second table. All synchronized, instantly.
- Staff and players are on the same platform: you run the game, they follow the clock, payouts, and standings from their seats.
- Every change is saved to the cloud as it happens. Lose a device mid-game and nothing is lost.
- Continuously updated, with new formats and features shipping through 2026.
The blind structure calculator. It's in the name.
Blind Valet exists because building a good blind structure by hand is the worst part of hosting. Tell it your buy-in, your chip set, and how long you want the night to run, and it generates a complete structure: smooth blind progression, clean chip denominations your players can actually stack, and a finish near the time you asked for. Rebuys and add-ons are factored in, and you can tweak any level afterward.
The Tournament Director offers a basic schedule suggestion tool; beyond that, structures are built level by level by hand. With Blind Valet, the structure that fits your exact game is a few clicks, every time.
Shipped in 2026 alone
The Tournament Director has not shipped a single update since early 2021. Here is some of what Blind Valet shipped this year alone.
- Mystery Bounty tournaments
- Bounty prize draws with an animated reveal on the clock, run server-side so nobody can peek.
- Shootout brackets
- True shootout format with round advancement, table-winner tracking, and heads-up brackets with byes.
- Split tournaments
- Split a large field into linked tournaments with synchronized or independent clocks, all managed from one hub.
- Smarter leagues
- New scoring formula variables, bounty and re-entry aware knockout counts, and bonus points in the rankings.
- Seating control
- Lock empty seats so auto-seating skips them, redraw seating after the draw, and one-shot table balancing.
- Data in and out
- Merge any two tournaments, plus richer CSV exports for results and members.
Blind Valet vs. The Tournament Director
Feature for feature, the essentials are covered on both sides. The difference is where your tournament lives and who can reach it.
| Feature | Blind Valet | The Tournament Director |
|---|---|---|
| Software model | Cloud platform, log in from anywhere | Windows desktop program |
| Runs on | Any device with a browser: Mac, Windows, Linux, iPad, Android, phone | Windows 10/11 only |
| Multiple devices, synchronized live | TV clock, phone remote, tablets, players' phones | One PC (extra monitors on that PC only) |
| Players can follow along | Live clock, standings, and stats on their own phones | Whatever fits on the screen in the room |
| Tournament clock and blind structures | ||
| Blind structure calculator | Complete structure from your buy-in, chip set, and target length, with clean chip denominations | Basic schedule suggestion, or build it by hand |
| Payout calculation | ||
| Player database and stats | ||
| Table seating and balancing | ||
| League standings | Live page your players can open anytime | HTML export or third-party sites |
| Backups | Automatic, in the cloud | Files on your hard drive |
| Latest release | Updated continuously, new features all year | Version 3.7.2, not a single update since early 2021 |
| Price | Free plan for small games, subscription for more | $39.99 license, $199.99/year commercial |
The Tournament Director is a product of Corey Cooper. Blind Valet is not affiliated with it. Details above are based on the publicly listed features, pricing, version history, and gallery screenshots of The Tournament Director as of August 2026.
Try it before your next game night
You can be running a tournament in under two minutes, and the free plan means you can test it on a real game before changing anything.
- 1
Create a free account
No download and no credit card. Sign up in the browser on whatever device you have in front of you.
- 2
Set up your tournament
Pick buy-in, stacks, and length, and Blind Valet generates a blind structure and payouts. Adjust anything you like, then save it as a template for next time.
- 3
Run it from anywhere
Open the clock on your TV or a laptop, log in on your phone, and manage the whole tournament from your seat.
Common questions
- Does Blind Valet work on Windows?
- Yes. Blind Valet runs in any modern browser, including on Windows. The difference is that it also runs everywhere else: Mac, Linux, iPad, Android tablets, and phones.
- Is there a free version?
- Yes. The free plan covers small home games with no time limit and no credit card, so you can run real tournaments before deciding anything. Paid plans add larger fields and club features.
- Can I run multi-table tournaments?
- Yes. Blind Valet handles seating draws, table balancing, and table consolidation as players bust, along with payouts, rebuys, add-ons, and bounties.
- Do I need to install anything?
- No. There is no download and no license file. Create an account, log in from any device, and your tournaments, players, and league history are there.