AR Poker Debut

[Davairus]

I have added a poker to Mocker's tavern to provide an activity to do in there. Now the game itself was "finished" six months ago but reached a stumbling block. That stumbling block was my lack of experience playing poker. I don't play it so I've been coding to the specifications I've been given to go with, and someone gave me bad ones. You will find it is a very robust game, and its pretty stable in the sense that, if things hit snags because something unforeseen came up, it has the capability to detect the most common errors and state an error code to give some clue into the problem, without having crashed the realms. Also if it does crash, the poker dealer won't return, so the game won't be crashed repeatedly. You will have to contact imms to get it going again.

So that said here are its rules:

Table

Sit at the poker table to join the game, stand up to leave it.
If the blinds have been paid, you will be enlisted into the game in the next round.
If the blinds haven't been paid, you will join.
"look table" is the command to see all the information you need, which includes:- the pot size, everyone else's stakes, the table cards, your pocket cards, who's turn it is, who's on the "button", what your current best hand is given all the cards available

Blinds

First player "bets" small blind, second bets big blind. These are bets before anybody get cards. It gets some money into the pot. Its a little complicated (I can assure you I have heard at least 8 different versions of how this should be done, and not 1 of them agrees) I will just say if you want to make the blinds as fair as possible, play until everyone's had a turn to be the small blind.

Unlike the poker versions I saw, I opted to let people control what size blind they want, using the low/high values as limits instead. If you want an expensive game you got it. If you want a cheap small blind you can have that too. I'm not going to write code to force you to agree what blinds is.. you can do that.

The rounds

The first betting round is played with just two personal cards (pocket cards).
Next up is the flop - 3 shared cards go to the table.
Next is turn - 1 more table card added.
Next is river - 1 more table card.
Finally, the showdown, which compares everyone hands to find a winner.

A round ends in follow conditions:

*if nobody raises, it ends when everyone checks (free bid)
* otherwise, it ends when play returns to the last guy that raised (in other words, you can "raise" to keep a round going)

Check call raise fold

check - do this when your investment already matches the max bet. free

call - do this to match the max bet.
e.g. (1) if you play right after big blind, you have to call the big blind. if you were small blind, you already have some investment.
e.g. (2) if someone raises, "call" matches the new amount

raise - do this to match max bet + raise by additional amount. I put a limit on this because pots can be escalated way fast... without it you can basically buy the hand.
e.g. max investment is 1000, you've invested 500. raise 200 costs 700 (500 to match the old amount + your additional raise)

fold - call it quits. Fold instead of standing if you want to be in the next game.

Winning rules

Order of priority is as follows:
-royal flush
-straight flush
-four of a kind
-full house
-flush
-straight
-three of a kind
-two pairs
-1 pair

In the event of a tie the winner is decided by who has the highest card in the pocket cards. Suits count.

Feature requests/changes

Since I heard like 10 different ways of doing things, what I will say is, if you want a feature added... provide a GOOD description of the feature. I will create from the best one I get.

Example 1... people have been telling me the game needs an "all-in", without taking the time to properly explain how it works. Obviously with the game needing several full matches played for the blinds to even out, it does need some kind of guard against humongous betting. But I haven't been able to obtain a good definition of the all-in, from people or websites, from what I've gathered, its just a way to avoid getting bought out. So there is no all-in yet. Try playing with similar stakes.

Example 2.... Others were saying the first betting round was off, but some people think its completely fine. That debate indicates I should be just leaving it as is.

Basically, if something makes the game not worth playing, it needs to be changed. Otherwise, might as well just leave it out if its too complicated.



Example game

> look table

[crazyhorse]

Player one has 10k


Player two has 2k (both not in the pot. Lets say the combined pot is 25k)


Player one goes "all in"

Player two "calls"

Player one puts 2k in the pot. Player two puts 2k in the pot.

All in is a serious scare tactic, but you cannot raise someone more than they have.

Say there is a third player who has the 10k...And calls. Player One two and three put 2k in a 'sidebet' for only player two. Whoever wins that out of the three sets of hands, wins that pot, and player one and player three duke it out for the 8k each they have in the different pot between themselves. Player two cannot win this pot, since he didnt put any money into it. Think of it as a completely different game.

The sidebet starts when one person cannot afford the next bet, so. There was originaly 25k in the pot, everyone tosses 2k for the sidebet, into the original pot since everyone had enough money to cover that. Thus there is 31k in the 'sidebet' and 16k in the upper part of the same game where only player one and player three are apart of.

I hope this explains a bit with the all in, and buying people out and stuff. Technicaly you cant 'buy someone out'. You can just raise them enough to make them put everything in.

[Phostan]

Two things. Once a game starts, no one should be able to get in until it's completely over. Joining in between rounds is unfair. Second, Before the game starts, there should be a set limit as to how much each player has to play with, if people can empty their whole bank account to stay in the game, that's crap, cause I know certain Justices who play a lot of online poker are rich.

I'm also thinking this could be a awesome Herald event, where a game could be held where the Heralds, and by Heralds I mean the Herald Imms, can fork up some extra gold for the winner. This game would have increasing blinds so that it didn't go on forever. Could even have cabal war poker tournaments where one representative from every cabal gets in on a game against everyone else. How funny would it be to have a Knight, Legion, Warlord, Justice, and Herald si0tting at a table together without killing each other? Toss in one non-cabal char to make it an even six. And then you could have a list somewhere showing which cabal reigns supreme in poker. *drool* A whole new world of wasting time on a mud has been unlocked.

P.S. If the mud crashes is that going to reset the game?
And what about a seperate bank account for poker, that draws from your main bank account automatically when a game with a set limit starts? Because that way if the mud did crash, then you'd still be able to keep going without starting over. I dunno. Just suggestions and ideas.

[Faelon]

I think that the problem can be solved with a max, such as we have. But instead of making the max 1000 coins, make the max in chips. So players actually have to buy chips. In doing this, players cannot just carry around 100,000 coins and buy the pot. Instead, you have chips to play with and you have to cash them out or buy them as necessary.

Sidebets would solve your 1000 gold max too, making it impossible for someone to 'buy' a hand, unless the other player was unwilling to go all in (if that was the case).

[crazyhorse]

I dont think the game should automaticaly take out of your bank account, and I dont think there should be chips. If you are in a game, and have 100k on you, and someone decides to jump you....Bitch what? There is going to be a bit of a hard balance the find, and you gotta be on your guns at all times for pk.

[Davairus]

Yeah, looks like there's still a crash or two in there. If it crashes it will wipe everything out. Seeing it occur when people join a tournament that's in progress. So I'll probably just remove that feature instead of fixing it.

If you see it going nuts, you might as well make everyone stand up. Because once the game crashes the dealer isnt coming back until an imm takes care of it. That prevents people from just spam crashing the game. He'll be a permanent fixture once all the issues are taken care of.

[Faelon]

Maybe putting a bouncer in there, who tosses out adgitators who attack those who are playing. As much as I understand PK mud, in a realistic sense, the 'card house' in question isn't going to like people messing with their 'income' (players). Obviously abuse of this, could lead to some problems, but only the obvious.

Player A attacks Player B,
Player B runs and Starts card game,
Player A attacks and gets Bouncer on his back.
Player B leaves game and re-enters for the fresh attack.

This problem could be solved, by forcing people to wait out adrenaline like guildhall guardians.

Player A attacks Player B,
Player B runs and attempts to enter card game,
A huge Bouncer says, "Eh, what thinkin?! Get blood all over cards!"
Player A cackles with pure death filled glee and smites Player B for being a bitch.

Thoughts?


[EDIT]

To add a bit to precautions, you could implement a no 'who/where' into the game for active players. Effictively, this makes it hard for a player at the game to be actively involved in any sort of pk/hiding.

Player A is in game after seeing new and improved Player B
Player A {Where pk} --> "You are too busy to see who is around!"
Player A curses his inability to check for new and improved Player B
Player A finally leaves game when he has no more chips/coins
Player B, who waited like a fanatic, bitch slaps Player A into yesterday

More thoughts?

[Davairus]

^

Heralds have bouncers/ability to bar people from taverns for this reason. It won't be enough to completely prevent people from breaking in to screw things over, as you've astutely said.. it is also a pk mud.

[Faelon]

[Offtopic]

[Edit]

Ignore me. Thanks.

[The_Dark_Paladin]

Thats Texas hold em good game but still have a hard time playing the game

[Davairus]

[Vhrael]

Dav - I'll get with you tomorrow and go over all-ins in detail, just can't get to it right now.

[crazyhorse]

Dav - I will let Vhrael get back to you on that since I suck at explaining things.



You cannot have the player without enough funds fold. its kinda gay. Find some sort of thing to do until then.

[Altheripper]

Well, bouncing people that are in the middle of playing is apparently a bad thing. It crashed today when I did that.

[trance_monkey]

The All-In dilemma is easy to see when playing, hard to describe, probably harder to code but that's not my job..

Three players: Pot is 25k

A - 10k
B - 2k
C - 10k

The turn is down, time to bet. A goes All-In, meaning B or C can still fold.

Pot: 35k

IF B wants to stay in, he'll technically have to go All-In too, so he puts his last 2k in.

Pot: 37k

To make the bets even, though, player A removes 8k from the pot

Even Pot for A and B: 29k

Then it's up to C if he wants to pay 2k to stay in or not. If he does, pot is now 31k. However, he can raise player A, or A can raise C, and make a side pot. Lets say C goes all in with player A, so they both put their remaining 8k in a side pot.

Main pot: 31k
Side pot: 16k (player B does not get this even if he beats both A and C)

So now, the river comes and the winner is drawn. If A or C is the winner, the winner gets both pots as they had a stake in both pots.

If B is the winner, then he gets the MAIN POT, and the SIDE POT is then determined by whether A had better cards than C, or vice versa.

Yay poker!

I wonder if any of that was intelligble.

[_Clifton_]

that's almost right for all in.

The turn is down, time to bet. A goes All-In, meaning B or C can still fold.

Pot: 35k

IF B wants to stay in, he'll technically have to go All-In too, so he puts his last 2k in, but since he can't match the entire 10k, a side pot is made up of the difference between A's bet and B's bet.

Main Pot: 29k Side pot: 8K
(Main Pot can go to A or B, Side Pot can only go to A -- at this moment)

If C folds, A automatically wins the side pot and the rest of the cards are flipped to see who wins the main pot. But if C wants to call A's All-In, he has to put in 10k as well (2k goes to main pot, 8k goes to side pot).

Main Pot: 31k Side Pot: 16k.

If B wins overall, he can only win the 31k, with A and C comparing hands for the Side Pot of 16k.

If there's multiple All-Ins, there's just multiple side pots with the same process..[/quote]

[rabidgecko]

As an addition, make the (S) and (C) in black text, and the (H) and (D) in red? Just an idea...By the way, a storm took 10k that was gonna be mine

[Davairus]

I've added another raise limit (can't raise by more than the big blind) in the meantime. It can still get big that way but it takes multiple people raising to do it, which is better, since the person with the most gold doesn't muscle out everyone anymore. As for all-in's.. agree on something.

[Phostan]

Agree on something? Clifton's explanation is correct, so you should go with that.


I wonder if it'd crash if someone didn't have enough gold to meet their blind? You should look into that.

[Davairus]

Some more issues that have came up...

Game routine issues
* I changed the post-flop game rounds to a 'fixed position', they always start from left of dealer now. The way it should be.
* first raise per round is supposed to be done with "bet", haven't gotten around to it though, so those of you who're confused by that, just use raise instead of bet. its a cosmetic thing.
* all-in may be staying out of the game, because with the game being online, you can't see anyones poker faces, so bluffing is really easy, which means the game takes less skill (poker faces is a skill..period). and lower pots solve that problem. We'll see...

hand evaluation issues
* multiple instances of identical high-card two pair is solved by kicker instead of who has the highest low pair at the moment
* same goes for the 'full house' with identical high-card
* same goes for the flush, it goes to kicker instead of checking the next highest card in the flush, then the next, then the next, etc
* pairs is also solved by kicker instead of looking for highest odd/even
* five-card hands (e.g. straights) check kickers instead of ties
..etc, so basically whenever there's a high-card tie, it goes to kicker ...which for this game, is the highest card in the pocket)
No big rush to fix any of those issues just yet.

These are things I'm considering adding/changing...

1) fixed amount of raises per round of betting (trying to prevent people rocketing the jackpot, because there's still no all-in)
2) addition of two "wild cards" i.e. jokers (one happy, one sad). These are cards which can be used to stand in for any card you like. Pocket card only. This will basically just raise the 'X-of-a-kind''s by 1 card, which makes 3 of a kind beat a straight, but I dont want it to make pairs beat straights, thats dumb. High joker would also be the best kicker. Low (sad) joker the worst card in the game, kicker-wise.
3) move to darkhaven since i found a poker-room there
4) Food to the bartender