League Ace Founder Interview with PokerSoftware.com

If you're looking for top-notch software to manage your home poker league, look no further than League Ace. Developed by a graphic artist who was upset with the product he used, League Ace boasts a free web-based interface to rank players in recurring home games. Customized scoring options are available and, as you would expect, the new software has caught fire since its introduction to the marketplace. PokerSoftware.com sat down with Wes Cutshall, League Ace's founder and lead developer, to learn more.

PokerSoftware.com: Tell us how the idea for League Ace came about.

Cutshall: I live in Houston, Texas, where there is no legalized gambling. We have plenty of bar leagues and home poker games around town. However, you have to be creative if you want to play poker. We started a home league a couple of years ago. I didn’t even know what a poker league was at the time. The guys I played with were using Home Poker Tour and I signed up on there.

After a while of using it, Home Poker Tour said that it was gong to start charging for a lot of its basic features. It pissed me off that they took standard features we were using and then said you had to pay $15 per month for them in the future. Our entire league's buy-in was only $30, so it gave me a bad taste in my mouth. I'm a programmer and do web-based applications for a living. That’s how League Ace got started.

PokerSoftware.com: Describe the difference between a home game and a home league.

Cutshall: A home league is a series of games where players receive points based on how they finish. If you show up, for example, you get a point. You get a point for everyone you last longer than and you get two bonus points for finishing in first place. My group does a six month league and we pay out to the top three spots. We also have bounty points, which added some volatility to it. You can create the formula for the season and then drag and drop people based on their order of finish.

PokerSoftware.com: How do you encourage players who didn’t fair well in the beginning to continue to participate in a home league?

Cutshall: Our league has been going on for about two and a half years. We've done enough things to make it worthwhile. We always have a game pot. Everyone still puts in $5 and if you win that game, you get the pot. That's an incentive for people to show up. We also allow non-league players to enter. We have a structure where people haven’t lost interest.

PokerSoftware.com: League Ace is currently free. Do you plan to charge for it in the future?

Cutshall: I don’t need to make money off of League Ace. I have other sites that I run. Most of the sites that I own have a model where you pay for certain features. I'm not going to take any features currently on League Ace and force people to pay for them. However, I have thought of things like charging for a message board on the league's home page. I could also take several features, wrap them into a package, and then charge for it.

PokerSoftware.com: What challenges have you faced so far?

Cutshall: From a programming standpoint, the most difficult challenge has been interface design, meaning how the application works. I've focused on creating a usable application. I was not a computer person growing up; I was an artist, so I used that side of my brain and then got into computing.

I'll create an interface, maybe in PowerPoint, and then program it after spending hours thinking about it. You have people who have never used a web-based interface and now have to manage an entire league. On Home Poker League, I didn’t like having to type everyone's points in manually. Yahoo has a library of code with drag and drop features that I used when creating League Ace.

Another challenge has been advertising League Ace. In all of my other websites, I've purchased Google ads. They won't let you purchase ads with the word "poker" in them. I can't use "poker league management." I can't even say "card league management," but I can say "home league management."

I ended up putting out a press release and need to start pounding the pavement. I bought a banner ad on PokerRoad.com. Right now, I'm throwing money away because there's no way to make money off the site. However, my businesses are successful enough that I don’t need to make money with League Ace. It's import to make this something that people can use. There's a potential for growth.

PokerSoftware.com: What feedback have you received so far?

Cutshall: One week ago, I had 40 leagues and 40 players. In essence, every league hadn’t added players yet. They hadn’t really used the system. Now, I have 50 leagues and 75 players signed up. What I realized is that when people signed up, they didn’t use League Ace right away. They had to sign up and tell other people about it first.

I also paid people to come in and check the software for bugs. When I had 40 people sign up without a problem, I knew that we didn’t have any issues.

Visit LeagueAce.com today to learn more.