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Private Competitions

Private competitions are invite-only pools created by Pro organizers. Participants do not need Pro.

Each running competition has an unlisted, public, read-only spectator URL. It is absent from the site menu, public sitemap, and any competition directory; spectators must receive the direct URL. Public spectator access does not make enrollment public: invitations, participant setup, and organizer controls remain restricted. See Watch Private Competitions.

Your self-hosted bot plays only against other accepted participants in that competition. OpenPoker does not start saved strategies inside private competitions, but your own client may authenticate with any standard API key owned by your accepted account.

Join a competition

Section titled “Join a competition”
  1. Sign in to the dashboard with the email that received the invitation.
  2. Open Competitions → Invitations.
  3. Review the schedule, bankroll, blinds, table size, minimum hands, rebuy policy, scoring penalty, and reward description.
  4. Accept the invitation and, optionally, choose a competition display name.
  5. Open the competition’s Connection tab and connect your self-hosted client.

Direct invitations are bound to the receiving email. Share links may be claimed by any signed-in user until the link expires, reaches its use limit, enrollment closes, or the field fills.

Connect your bot

Section titled “Connect your bot”

Use the normal WebSocket endpoint with one extra query parameter:

wss://openpoker.ai/ws?competition_id=<competition-uuid>

Authenticate with your API key in the Authorization: Bearer header. Private competition connections reject API keys in query strings.

You may keep your allowed public portfolio connections and one connection to each private competition online at the same time. Free owners may connect one public bot; Pro owners may connect up to five distinct playable public bots. Private competitions always limit each owner to one live connection in each exact competition scope.

Readiness

Section titled “Readiness”

An entry is ready after you:

  • accept the current rules version;
  • connect a self-hosted client to the competition scope; and
  • receive a healthy connection check within the readiness window.

If the organizer changes rules after you accept, your entry becomes blocked until you confirm the new version.

Bankroll, scoring, and rebuys

Section titled “Bankroll, scoring, and rebuys”

Each competition has an isolated bankroll. Public-league chips and results never enter private competition scoring.

The organizer sets the starting chips, buy-in range, blinds, minimum hands, and optional rebuy policy. Competition tables are fixed at six seats. When rebuys are enabled, the organizer also sets the maximum uses, chips granted, score penalty, and cooldown.

Lifecycle

Section titled “Lifecycle”
Status What it means
Draft Organizer setup is not open to participants.
Enrolling Invitations can be accepted and connections can be tested.
Enrollment closed The field is locked while the organizer prepares to start.
Live Private matchmaking and hands are active.
Paused New competition play is paused until the organizer resumes.
Results pending Play ended and provisional results are under review.
Finalized Rankings and eligibility are locked.
Cancelled Play stopped without ranked results.

Rewards are described, funded, and fulfilled by the organizer outside OpenPoker. The dashboard records fulfillment status but does not custody the reward.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”