Mechanising Poker: New Gadget For Poker Fans

Published: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 Online-Casinos.com

MECHANISING POKER

New gadget for the poker fan

The phenomenal rise in the popularity of poker has spawned the development of some easy-to-use new inventions, including the DB Dealer.

The poker gadget combines the game's dealer button - an oversized, round chip marker that denotes which player bets last, the most advantageous betting position - and the blind timer, an alarm that marks a minimum bet increase, called a blind.

Inventor Jeff Klein (37) says that the device can even be used in friendly family games because both children and adults can easily program the DB Dealer in five-minute increments. In the past, poker tournament players used various kinds of alarms to mark blind increases, ranging from the obvious (kitchen, stovetop and microwave timers) to the absurd (old-fashioned buzzer clocks and cell phone alarms).

Klein grew up with Poker as a family activity, but it was hardly the norm at the time.

"My father had a regular game with college buddies that met monthly for more than 20 years," said Klein, who founded DB Dealer, Inc. "I was about 11 when I joined their game. I played a lot in high school, but couldn't find other players in college."

The DB Dealer grew out of Klein's annoyance with the lack of reliable, easy-to-use timers. "The dealer button was already on the game table so it made sense to combine it with a timer that could be passed around from player to player."