Hey guys,

I'm a big fan of Bravo Poker Live data, but I always felt like their UI could use some help. I had a little downtime, so built what I think is a better UI for looking at live B&M game data just for the hell of it and to play around with some different technology. Use Cases I was trying to satisfy as follows:

1) Easy interface to find and filter live games running in casinos around the country
2) Help me plan a trip to play poker. i.e. (I want to play 40/80 Hold Em), where and when is the game likely to be running?
3) One click access to my favorite casinos
4) Visualize some of the data just to see what it looks like out of curiosity.

I'm pretty happy with how things turned out, so posting here for more feedback:

http://gametracker.lurkware.com

Full album of screen caps is here: http://s540.photobucket.com/albums/g...r123/lurkware/

And a couple inline:

Find Live Games:


Live Game Results:


Data visualization:
heatmap:


Graphs:


FWIW, I've done light testing on the following and everything seems to work well enough:
-Recent Chrome
-Recent Firefox
-IE8+
-Safari on Mac
-iOS (i.e. iPad, iPhone). Not optimized for mobile, but everything works
-Android. Not optimized for mobile, but everything works

In case anybody is interested, here's the tech that went into the site:
-node.js (to collect data)
-mySQL
-php (haven't used php in forever, wanted a refresher)
-jqQuery
-datatables jQuery plugin
-bootstrap (seriously awesome for quickly putting decent/nice UIs together)
-jqPlot (graphs)
-heatmapAPI (heatmap)
-quova (IP geo-location)


Anyhow, interested in any/all feedback. Thanks for looking!

Cool. Are you scraping the data from the Bravo site?

Very cool.

Pretty cool project.

Under the "Distance" column, what starting point are you referencing? I clicked "Southeast" and it has distances of 723 miles, 904 miles, etc., but I'm not seeing what that distance is from? Am I not seeing something?

Sorry for delayed reply. I'm doing geo-location based on your IP and distance from the lat/long of your IP to the lat/long of the casino.

Anybody have other thoughts on cool ways to use this type of data? It seems to me that if Genesis wanted to, they could do a lot of cool stuff with their website/mobile app, like:

-Build a community around the games. It would be super easy to let people search for game X (ex. 40/80 holdem) and, if it's not running, add a link to sign up for general interest (i.e. I want to play this game on Thursday mornings or Friday afternoons, etc). Then players (and room managers) could see general interest lists and, potentially, build games around them.

-Aggregate search data and provide it to poker room managers to give them potential marketing data (i.e. I see we have 2,000 searches for Big O, let's put together a promo offer this month)

-Register for SMS or e-mail when a specific game is running in a given location (i.e. text me anytime 20/40+ hold em is running at Charlestown). Additionally, register for promos for specific games at given rooms (i.e. I want to receive promos for 5/10+ NL) from any casino in Atlantic City.

-Look at data changes over time (i.e. seasonality of games) and provide that info to room managers.

-Give room managers comparisons of their game vs. the competition (i.e. Here's how your Mid Stakes Wednesday Action is compared to the rest of your region, etc).


Anyhow, just my 2 cents worth. Thanks to the few of you who checked out the site (lol 39 unique visitors and left feedback in the thread.

Track historic data so that I can look at a region and see where I should stay.

For example:

Search historical data for 2/5 NL in AC

Casino Day (# tables)
Borgata Mon (3) Tue (4) Wed (4) Thur (5) Fri (15) Sat (14) Sun (7)
Harrah's Mon (1) Tue (0) Wed (1) Thur (1) Fri (2) Sat (3) Sun (1)
etc
etc
then click on a casino and go to a Day / Time grid