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John Coker
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Holdem
Holdem is a curses-based front-end for IRC Hold-em poker games. It provides a visual front-end interface for playing Texas and Omaha Hold-em poker over IRC using a dealer bot. This program still maintains the IRC client side interface where users write to each other by typing lines of input. The user still specifies game actions with messages to the dealer bot (often using special aliases).Holdem is a UNIX program, using curses (a CRT terminal graphics library). It attempts to display the action in a realistic manner, but is limited to traditional ASCII terminal graphics. However, it does provide a much improved interface over the regular IRC client programs (like ircII).
The Display
When holdem is started, it presents an interface with three main areas. Most of the display at the top is the ``playing area'' which displays a visual representation of play as a table with the players around it. At first, this is a start-up page with fixed content. When the next Hold-em game is started, the display will change to the game display and track the action. Note that the current user need not be playing for the display to be active.Below the playing area is the message area. Messages sent on the channel are displayed in this scrolling area. Note that messages interpreted as game status are not displayed (they are represented visually). Just like a normal IRC client, things you type are either IRC commands (beginning with /) or broadcast messages (any other line).
fold fold fold
Stew WallEye Dork
$14043 $1815 $18153
rai 10 .---. .---. .---. fold
.---. |T | |4 | |3 |
|:::| $120 | H | | C | | H |
|:::| | T| | 4| | 3|
JetBoy `---' `---' `---' CHorse
$1973 $8549
(D)
>10< fold
.---..---.
|T ||3 |
| S || S |
PokerStud Nemesis
$13637 $8754
--- $10 to call ----------------------------------------------------
*** Topic for #holdem: 10-20 Texas Holdem
*** Users on #holdem: Stew WallEye Dork CHorse Nemesis PokerStud
JetBoy Observer @HBot
+++ Starting game with dealer "HBot".
+++ New game with 7 players
/rais_
There are several things to notice in the sample screen above:
- You are actively playing with the nickname ``PokerStud'' as indicated by the fact that you can see your cards. (You have the ten of spaces (Ts) and the three of spades (3s).)
- Everyone else has folded except ``JetBoy,'' who raised last (battle of the blinds).
- The flop has come: ten of hearts, four of clubs, three of hearts (Th 4c 3h).
- Nemesis (the player to your right) is currently the dealer, indicated by the ``(D)'' above his hand.
- The pot contains $120 currently (to the left of the board).
- You have $13,637 and JetBoy has $1,973 to play with (below your hands).
- It is your turn to act, so the message line contains an indication of that (``$10 to call''). Also, when the action is on any player, the amount to go is indicated in angle brackets above their hand.
- The area below the line of dashes is the message window, where messages from other people on the channel (including the dealer bot) are displayed.
- Messages from the IRC server are (usually) prefixed with ***.
- Messages from holdem are prefixed with +++ to distinguish them from IRC messages.
- You are about to raise as indicated by the partially completed command on the bottom line.
Entering Commands
Note that you type messages to everyone and IRC commands using the same syntax you would when using a regular IRC client (such as irc or ircII). Holdem does not provide an alternate interface for entering commands to the dealer bot. Players still use messages to the dealer bot (like: p fold) or the convenience aliases (like: /fold). In the above example, you have previously gotten the poker .ircrc file so that you can play easily.Holdem does not automatically switch to a channel. The user should start up with the right server, then issue the command to get into a Hold-em channel (for example, #holdem). Once the next Hold-em game starts, the display will begin tracking the action. Note that you can watch the action as well (without joining the game).
Getting Started
You need to get the holdem source code and compile it for your platform. Currently, holdem works on most UNIX platforms, but not on DOS (sorry about that).You can download the compressed tar file through HTTP. Alternately, you can download it directly from www.jcsw.com. You should get the file poker/xpoker.tar.Z which is a compressed tar file. Once you have the archive and have unpacked it, see the README file for information on compilation plus solutions to common problems.
If you already play IRC poker, using holdem is easy. Simply run holdem instead of your usual IRC client. (Note that if you don't use ircII you will have to use the -i option or set up some environment. You can set up some environment variables to avoid having to use the -i option or enter the /server command. See the manual page for more information.
Holdem was developed to work with the poker-dealing bots developed by Todd Mummert (mummert+@cs.cmu.edu) which run on the server vegas.scandal.cs.cmu.edu. See Info on poker 'bots.
It is strongly recommended that you run holdem in a terminal with more than 24 lines (34 is good). If you use a 24-line terminal, you will only get to see the last three messages displayed in the message area, which will not be enough to follow a typical multi-way IRC conversation.
For an X11 front-end which works for most IRC poker games, see XPoker.
This site is maintained by John Coker and you can send mail to
john@jcsw.com
for more information.