pbots_calc

The Pokerbots Equity Calculator

NOTE: this codebase is no longer maintained or supported by the MIT Pokerbots competition.

Introduction

Abstract: pbots_calc is a ranged Equity Calculator for use by anyone, but particularly poker bots in the MIT Pokerbots Competition! (mitpokerbots.com)

pbots_calc is a simple library for calculating the showdown equity for regular texas hold'em hands, with limited support for pineapple variants. It supports common 2-card hand range syntax (see documentation for full details), and handles any number of players. It's built in C, using the poker-eval library for fast hand evaluation, and provides wrappers for python and java. It has reasonable speed, but there are certainly many areas for optimization and improvements.

The pbots_calc library is Free Software and is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. See the COPYING file in the root directory of the distribution.

Installation

The next several sections provide descriptions of how one can compile the source code. Note that because this is still considered in alpha, the current compilation will just install everything locally. I would encourage you to leave it that way until we reach a more stable version.

After following the instructions for your OS, you will be left with the compiled library in the pbots_calc directory, under export/your OS type/lib and include folders.

The final note regarding 32-bit vs 64-bit platforms and this library. I have only really tested this extensively as a 32-bit library, for use with 32-bit python and 32-bit java. So I would say that if you're in doubt or not sure what you're doing, just stick with 32-bit installs (even if you have a 64-bit system - it will still work!). However, there's nothing prohibiting this from working with 64-bit tools (we've confirmed it worked on a mac), so feel free to try. However, these instructions were written for 32-bit tools (c compiler, java, and python).

Linux Installation

First, make sure that you have gcc, python and scons installed. Installation should be as simple as sudo apt-get install gcc python scons

Now you'll need to download, patch, and install the poker-eval library:

1. Download the source and extract it.
   1. You need to patch the source code: You can find the patch in this directory, called poker-eval_patch.diff. If you're in the poker-eval directory, you can just patch -p0 < path/to/poker-eval_patch.diff. This will fix an #include typo and remove a bunch of unneeded folders from the build path.
2. If not already installed, you'll need to grab the autoconf and libtool packages: sudo apt-get install autoconf libtool
3. Proceed according to the instructions in poker-eval/README. (summarized below for reference.
   1. autoreconf --install
   2. ./configure
   3. make
   4. (assuming no errors) sudo make install

Finally, to compile the pbots_calc library, just run scons from the pbots_calc directory. This will compile the pbots_calc library, the c example code, and the java example code. It will also create calculator.sh scripts for each of the examples (more below).

Mac OSX Installation

1. Follow step 1 from the Linux installation.
2. 1. Install homebrew.
   2. If not already installed, you need to grab the autoconf and libtool packages: brew install autoconf libtool
3. Follow step 3 and onwards from the Linux installation

Windows Installation

Software you will need to have installed:

1. Python 2.7: Don't bother with 64 bit version. Required by scons.
2. Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Express: Needed in order to compile calculator. After installing, you will need to add C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0/VC/bin to your PATH (get help here). You can check you did this right by opening a command prompt and typing "set PATH"
3. Scons - get the latest windows installer for the production release (2.2.0 as of last update)

Next, you'll need download, modify, compile, and install the poker-eval library

1. Download the source. You'll need to use 7-zip or similar to extract source code
2. Use Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Express to open the poker-eval.sln found in the source.
   1. You'll be prompted to convert the "old" solution to a newer version - just do what it wants and click "Finish".
   2. Go to Tools>Options>Projects and Solutions>Build and Run and set the maximum number of parallel project builds to 1.
   3. Open poker-eval/Header Files/rules_std.h in the project and change #include <pokereval_export.h> to #include "pokereval_export.h" and save it.
   4. Ensure you are set to build a "Release" version (and not "Debug") by selecting "Release" from the drop down menu next to the "run" button (should be right below the help menu).
   5. Finally, right-click on the poker-eval project and select "build" - the output console should not report any failures!
3. Open a file explorer and navigate to the location of the poker-eval library you downloaded (and just built).
   1. Navigate to the "Release" directory and copy the file "poker-eval.lib" to C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsof Visual Studio 10.0/VC/lib
   2. Also copy the all the contents from the include folder in the poker-eval library, including the "inline" folder, to a new folder called poker-eval in C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsof Visual Studio 10.0/VC/include

Now, you should be able to build and install the pbots_calc library:

1. Open a command prompt
2. Navigate, by using the cd command, to the pbots_calc library folder.
3. Run scons.

Running the Demos

Included in the library are 3 demo applications, showing how to use the library from C, Python, and Java. The demo is the same in all languages, and is just a command-line tool for running the library. Use standard hand range notation for specifying cards (see examples below for clues). In each folder, you should find a calculator.sh (or calculator.bat on Windows platforms). You can execute the demos using this script (you may need to set the script to be executable).

Specifying Hands

Each hand can be represented by one or more hand ranges, specified in a comma-separated list. Multiple hands are separated by colons. Board cards are optional and must either be 0, 3, 4 or 5 cards. You can specify 0 or more dead (discarded) cards.

Sample 2-card hand ranges:

• 8sTd - single hand range
• 8sTd, 8sTc - 2 hand range
• 8Ts - 4 hand range: [8sTs, 8cTc, 8dTd, 8hTh]
• 8To = [8sTc, 8sTd, 8sTh, 8cTs, ...]
• 88 = [8s8c 8s8d 8s8h 8c8d 8c8h 8d8h]
• 8T = [8Ts, 8To]
• JJ+ = [JJ, QQ, KK, AA]
• 88-TT = [88, 99, TT]
• xx = random (all possible 2-card hands)

3-card hand ranges are heard to specify. Currently you can only enumerate all the hands you mean, or specify random:

• 8s9cTd,8s9cTh,8s9sTd,...
• xxx = random (all possible 3-card hands)

Examples

• calculator.sh 4hqd:js9h askcqh will calculate the post-flop equities for a hand of 4 hearts and queen diamonds against the jack spades and 9 hearts, with a board of ace spades, king clubs, and queen hearts.
• calculator.sh 4qo:jts+ will calculate pre-flop equities for the range of all 4-queen offsuit hands against all jack-ten or better suited hands.
• calculator.sh 6d8h:xxx 4c9d7ctskd 2c will calculate the post-river equity of a hand of 6 diamonds 8 hearts vs a random (unknown) 2-card hand with a full board and the 2 clubs discarded.