♠ Felt & Friends
Private online poker for you and your friends, styled after GGPoker. Fake chips, real drama.
- No Limit Hold'em with occasional Pot Limit Omaha hands (frequency set by the host), either as normal PLO hands with blinds or as bomb pots (everyone antes, straight to the flop, optional double board)
- Full rules engine: side pots, short all-in raise rules, heads-up blinds, pot-limit sizing, uncalled bet return, UTG straddle, time bank
- Run it twice decided per hand: everyone in an all-in gets a 10-second yes/no prompt, and it only runs twice if they all agree
- Win without a showdown and you can choose to show your cards; hand history only reveals what was actually shown (plus your own cards)
- Rebuys are requests: players ask, the host approves the amount
- GG-style table: stadium felt, avatars with timer rings, chip stacks, dealer button, dealt/flipped cards, chips flying to the pot and to the winner, showdown highlights, hand-name badges
- Real soundtrack: a lounge-jazz playlist (Kevin MacLeod) that ducks under a looping tension track during all-ins and big pots, plus recorded card, chip and knock effects (Kenney) — see
client/public/audio/CREDITS.md
- Host controls: approve joins, blinds, antes, buy-ins, stacks, PLO frequency & style, timing, run-it-twice, auto-deal, pause, kick
- Chat with quick emoji, full hand history with every player's cards, reconnect after refresh, pre-action buttons (check/fold, call any), keyboard shortcuts (F / C / R)
Run it locally
Requires Node 18+.
npm run install:all # installs root, server and client deps
npm run dev # server on :3001, client on :5173
Open http://localhost:5173, create a table, and share the 5-letter code. To try it alone, open a second tab with ?p=2 in the URL (each p value keeps its own session) or seat some bots:
cd server
node test/bots.js <TABLECODE> 3 # 3 bots that mostly call
node test/bots.js <TABLECODE> 4 http://localhost:3001 maniac
Run the engine tests with npm test.
Deploy so friends can join remotely
Free setup: Vercel (site) + Render (server)
Vercel can't host the game server (it needs a long-lived Socket.io process with in-memory tables and timers), so split it:
- Server on Render (free tier): render.com → New → Blueprint → pick this repo.
render.yaml sets everything up (root server/, node index.js). Copy the service URL, e.g. https://pokerapp-server.onrender.com.
- Site on Vercel: import the repo with Root Directory =
client. Add the environment variable VITE_SERVER_URL=https://pokerapp-server.onrender.com and deploy.
Free Render services sleep after 15 minutes idle and take ~30–60 s to wake; the site shows "Connecting to server…" until then. A free uptime pinger (e.g. cron-job.org hitting /health every 10 minutes) keeps it awake during game nights.
Single service
The server serves the built client, so a single deployment is enough (Railway, Render, Fly.io, a VPS…). The included Dockerfile and nixpacks.toml build the client and start the server on $PORT.
Manual equivalent:
npm run build # builds client/dist
npm start # node server/index.js (serves the API, sockets and the built client)
If you'd rather host the client separately (e.g. Vercel), set VITE_SERVER_URL to the server URL before building.
Project layout
server/
index.js Express + Socket.io, sessions, host commands
engine/table.js Table state machine (seats, hands, betting, run-outs, showdown, timers)
engine/evaluator.js Hand evaluation (Hold'em + Omaha)
engine/pots.js Side pots
test/ node:test suite and the bot script
client/src/
App.jsx Session + screens
lib/useGame.js Socket state, animation timeline
lib/audio.js Music playlist + sample player (assets in client/public/audio)
lib/layout.js Stage geometry and seat positions
components/ Lobby, TableView, Seat, Card, Chips, ActionBar, SidePanel
styles/ Design tokens and table/panel styles
Notes
- Tables live in memory; restarting the server ends all games.
- Set
TIMING='{"showdownHold":20000}' on the server to slow down run-outs/showdowns while debugging.
