Arduino LCD: Acey Deucey

There's something satisfying the challenge of fitting games into the limits of a 16x2 character display. This week I did a version of a card game called Acey-Deucey. The basic rules of the game are: first the player antes into the pot. Then two cards are dealt. The player may then bet on whether or not a third card will be between the first two cards. All you need to do is outlast an Arduino-AI opponent.

Code: http://eturnerx.com/files/arduino/005_acey_deucey_eturnerx_arduino_lcd.html

I did make some small changes to the game as it is played live:

1. Ace is always higher than King and never lower than 2
2. Pairs do not result in an automatic penalty
3. The ante increases every few turns

A player can pass by betting "0". A player's maximum bet is limited by the size of their stack and the amount still left in the pot. The AI will bet only when the spread (distance between the two cards) is seven or greater. The AI bets more with wider spreads but will bet only up to half its stack. This is not a bad default strategy.

Since this game is mathematically solveable for optimal long-term play I intentionally made the Arduino-AI a little stupid; the AI does not count cards. There is a single standard 52 deck (4 suits, 13 ranks) being tracked and you are told when the deck is reshuffled.

You can gain a big advantage by simple card counting. Counting 234|QKA versus 6789T should do better than chance. You gain even more of an edge by tracking ALL cards and counting the ratio of good vs bad cards; Just how poker players count "outs". If you're really nerdy you might even try Kelly betting. Hey, whatever you find fun :)

Checkout the other games I have converted

WorkOut Poker Episode 3: HUD

Continuing on with first steps towards an ExerciseUI, this episode adds on a HUD to give stats that help decision making while playing.

The HUD shows VPIP / PFR & AGR / 3Bet stats. These are only basic but there was not much room for any more since the size of the numbers needed to be increased.

I had the dreaded problem where the Kinect would stop updating in FAAST. It turns out that the shortcut I was using to launch FAAST lost "Run in Administrator" mode and you should disconnect the Kinect power USB converter from the computer after a reboot. It was fiddly but once it was running it was rock solid.

Getting the HUD running was not trivial. It causes a huge load on the computer to run FAAST, PokerStars and Holdem Manager 2 at the same time (while I was recording). The FAAST display would sputter and gestures would not be recognised. The solution was to use ImDisk and move the HEM2 database into RAM. I also made a different ImDisk RAMdisk and recorded the video straight to that. Time to buy an SSD.

The HUD stats were useful. There were not many hands on the other players but even still some information was better than none.

Episode List
Episode One: Basic Functionality
Episode Two: Bet Sizing
Episode Three: HUD

WorkOut Poker Episode 2: Bet Sizing

Continuing on with first steps towards an ExerciseUI, this episode makes some improvements to existing gestures and adds gestures for bet sizing.

Some of the existing gestures needed a bit of fine tuning so that they would trigger more reliably and not trigger at unwanted times. The gesture for fold changed into three raises of the knees in either a left-right-left or right-left-right pattern. This is to allow some variation in the marching step used to fold. The previous left-right pattern just didn't quite feel right when playing.

In the last episode the Kinect would stop updating in FAAST. This was edited out of the video, but having to restart FAAST every seven or eight hands was tiresome. To anybody else having this problem, the answer is to run FAAST in administrator mode and to plug the Kinect into a USB that connects directly to the motherboard. Usually these will be on the back of the computer. It seems that the Kinect does not play nicely when going through intermediary USB hubs.

There are four betsizing actions for 33%, 50%, 75% and 100% of the pot. It was ticky getting the 50% and 75% actions to distinguish from each other. Doing cross hand above the shoulders move would trigger both the 50% and 75% pot size bets. I did manage to get something workable, though some care must be taken such as; squarely facing the Kinect camera, pausing after raising hands and pausing after hands are crossed. I hope to make this even more robust in future.

The increased stability meant I got in a 50min poker session. I ended this voluntarily - the software was rock solid this time. The activity level is still very low but it does beat sitting around. The next episode will experiment with multi-tabling to see if that improves the activity level to something more resembling a workout.

Episode List
Episode One: Basic Functionality
Episode Two: Bet Sizing
Episode Three: HUD

WorkOut Poker Episode 1: Basic Functionality

In a previous article "The ExerciseUI" I explored the idea that exercise should be something integrated into our daily workload. Technology is becoming cheaper and easier to use. Here are some baby steps.

I happen to really like Poker, so I made some custom gestures in the FAAST Kinect software for PokerStars. The three man gestures are: fold, check/call and bet.

Playing one table of Zoom poker creates a low tempo of activity. The most common poker action is folding so this is linked to the most common exercise: walking on the spot. The other actions require big hand movements with energy levels that correspond to the severity of the action.

This is early days yet; there is much more to do. While the activity levels are low, making this control more than one table will improve the tempo considerably. I also hope to estimate loads placed on different muscle groups to vary the gestures for actions to meet exercise goals. In this way we can work AND exercise.

Episode List
Episode One: Basic Functionality
Episode Two: Bet Sizing
Episode Three: HUD

PokerStars on an iPad (including HUD)

Some people are curious as to how I play PokerStars on the iPad - complete with Holdem Manager HUD and TableNinja. The answer is easy: remote desktop. I use this setup to play from around my home, any place with wifi, and even over 3G (tethered to my cheapo Android phone). Sure there's the brilliant PokerStars app, but that doesn't have ZOOM, HUD or TableNinja.

Specifically: I use the LogMeIn Ignition product. Install the free LogMeIn client on the desktop computer, grab the LogMeIn Ignition app from the app store, set up an account and you're good to go. And it only costs a few dollars total to do. You can probably use other free/cheap remote desktop products (e.g. VNC, RDP) but I like LogMeIn Ignition because I don't have to worry about firewalls and other complications because it just works.

This technique should work for any Poker site.

TIP: On the iPad, once you're running Igntion, use the settings to force the connection to use 1024x768 screen resolution. That's the iPad1/iPad2's native resolutions so you'll have less problems with things being too small. Ignition will reset the desktop computer to it's original resolution when it ends the remote desktop session.

TIP: TableNinja works brilliantly in this setup. No keyboard? fine it still does default bet-sizing for you.

TIP: TableNinja and a wireless keyboard is where it's at. Connect the iPad to the big TV (or a projector), sit back on the couch with a beer and it's game on!

Multitabling does work - but due to the low screen-res you'll want to do this in stacked mode.

Result: ZOOM poker - anytime anywhere. Oh yes we can :)

If you like this article then perhaps you'll also like WorkOut Poker where I use a Kinect to play poker by waving my arms around.

Best time to join cash tables

On PokerStars I've noticed a little bit of a trend on the lower limit tables. These limits are just full of regulars with 11/8 stats that are annoying to play against when there are too many on the table. Ideally you want tables with at least two fish that you can exploit. Here's my tip:

Join tables in the five minutes before the half hour or the whole hour.

Why does this work? Well it turns out the people with these stats are grinders. They play a fairly predictable game over a large number of tables. They also tend to play to for a set length of time which incidentally tends to end on the half or whole hour. These are the times when seats might open up on tables with the fish. With so many seats opening up it might even attract a few new fish to your tables.

Holdem Manager and Comodo Firewall

I was getting a really bad crash in Holdem Manager (HEM) where the program would startup then crash with a BadImageFormat error. After some digging around it appeared to be a problem with the later versions of HEM and the Comodo Firewall software I was using. The fix is easy: either uninstall Comodo Firewall or add HEM to the list of trusted applications in Comodo.

Poker at Christchurch Casino

I played poker for a few hours at Christchurch casino on Saturday night. I must say that I enjoyed the experience so much more than playing in Hamilton or Auckland. With Auckland Skycity about to close their poker room, I may have to fly down to Christchurch to play.

The dealers are a bit slower and make more mistakes than Hamilton or Auckland, but the players are always watching out so mistakes are always rectified. The slower dealing means that there's less mis-deals than I've experienced elsewhere.

The players are more chatty and like to talk more about anything and everything. There are not silent poker robots that only talk after a big confrontation. This helps in passing the time so you don't get impatient and let the action junkie reflex take over.

There is no roped off area and the poker tables are close to the bars. This means that chatty drunks like to wander past and you can often convince them to lay a few bob on the table.

The play is looser. There are some loose aggro-players who know what they are doing, but there are many many loose passive players. Way softer play than online. There are players making big mistakes - like chasing gutshots without odds or flat-calling with the nuts when last to act on the river. Just some people out for a bit of a gamble. Far more calling stations so when you hit a monster you can often get your whole stack in the middle - unless you've been a total rock all night.

The blinds are $1/$2 and the min-buyin is $75 dollars and the max-buyin is $200. That's a 35BB-100BB stack so you get to play real poker. This is better than the 25BB-75BB stack sizes at Skycity Auckland and the $2/$5 crapshot game of 20BB-40BB that Skycity Hamilton lays.

The rake is 10% but it appears they cap that at $10 per pot so it's much better than the $15 cap used at Hamilton and Auckland casinoes.

Yes, I think I'll be flying to down to Christchurch to play when I want live cash play. Skycity say that Queenstown casino will become their premier destination for NZ poker once Auckland closes. The problem I have with that is when I enquired about playing in Queenstown on last Friday night, they doubted that a game would get enough players to run. Ouch.