Poker Hand XML

[ThirdEye]

[ QUOTE ]
You'll never create a useful standard database as there are too many size/speed/usage tradeoffs for the "not in your wildest dreams" kind of tools.

You really have to bind the database to a specific solution.

[/ QUOTE ]

at least it would be possible to come up with something far more advanced compared to the stuff currently in use.

given the amount of information during a single hand, which is not THAT big, it should be possible to come up with something to cover at least 80%-90% of the typical questions you wanna ask (aka queries).

and most of the tools currently in use have a far less then optimal DB schema. many don't even cover the whole hand and solely use the db to store pre-computed data.

and i don't blame em, it is not easy because of the way a poker hand is structured (but not because of the amount of data)

but storing a hand in an easy-to-query format and then do the calculations on-the-fly (server side) is far more powerful...

[mikechops]

If we want a simple-to-query format, then we definitely want, a won/loss summary for each player. Sorry if I keep banging on about this, but I haven't seen it in any of the drafts yet.

[Tickner]

I miss one day and already 50 new posts. Wow.

So I just read the whole thread and I am impressed that we have a gathering of so many talented people commenting on this. This is exactly what I wanted since I myself am definitely not an XML expert by ANY means.

Muppet has a VERY good start on this imo, and the structure he is proposing seems to be exactly what I was thinking. Sure there are some minor issues we all have with it, but that's going to happen no matter what and thats good we are discussing it.

Here are some of my thoughts..

1. Possible action types should be "call, raise, fold". A check is just calling a bet of 0 chips and a bet is just raising the 0 chip bet (this is out of The Theory of Poker by Sklansky). Converters etc will obv put this in modern terms but in a strict poker hand history definition these are all we need to indicate what is happening (and actually its more techincally correct). Though there might be an argument that this reduces readability because we are all so used to the common poker terms, maybe if we are querying it there would be some logic involved, ie if we want to count how many "checks" there were before a bet or something we would need to look at the actions where type="call" AND amount="0" but it seems like a trivial issue to me at first glace.

2. I like the <cards> and <card> elements with the seperate card and suit attributes. It defines the data clearly and effectively. "Ah" slightly limits our schema for reasons already mentioned. We have to think long term here.

3. Can <pokerhand> be renamed officially to be more specific? Like I mentioned earlier in the thread I think we need to indicate the poker game being played in the opening tag to let the interpreter know what game to expect before it starts parsing the context of the hand etc etc.

So for EX.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
&lt;pokerhandxml&gt;

&lt;texasholdemhand (attributes...)&gt;
...
&lt;/texasholdemhand&gt;

&lt;sevencardstudhand (attributes...)&gt;
...
&lt;/sevencardstudhand&gt;

&lt;/pokerhandxml&gt;</pre><hr />

or at LEAST if we aren't going to do that we should make it an attribute in the &lt;pokerhand&gt; element.

4. As in the example above we should use a root element so that we can allow each XML document to have multiple hands (and potentailly different games for each hand)

Anyways, I think we are making good progress here.

As you guys probably know, I own the LegoPoker HH Converter and once we all agree on the first version of the PokerHandXML document, I will create an output option on the converter for it and this will allow us to convert any hand on the major sites into PokerHandXML. I am available to do this immediately. However we need to come up with a solid format that most of us do agree on before I do this because I do not want to have to completely re-write it over and over.

[Tickner]

Do you guys think that amount won/lost by each player should be included in the PokerHandXML or should it be the interpreters responsibility to calculate this itself? Obv all the information is available in the document for the application to do this.

[Tickner]

ThirdEye, no poker site is ever going to accept our format (okay maybe but its unlikely). XML is the reason I made this thread. Converting a hand into a "standard database" would be your job as a developer since all of the applicaitons out there will have their own database needs and wants.

[Tickner]

[ QUOTE ]
If this is going to be an open-source community project (which I believe is the only option considering what we want to do) then we're going to have to discuss another fun topic.

1. Is the app going to be a standalone executable in addition to being a plug-in for any popular hand analyzers that happen to pop up (PT/HM/etc)?

2. What language will it be written in?

3. How are we going to manage/distribute the project to make sure everyone is working with an up to date version.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. We arent making an app just yet - we are creating an standard XML document. Once we create the XML format, developers like myself and anyone else that is interested can use it however they want.

If you are proposing that we create some sort of program for everyone to use freely that converts every hand from every poker site into PokerHandXML - good luck. I doubt anyone would spend the counless hours that this would take to create. LegoPoker took me a month just to add support for FTP/Stars/Party.

Even if I wanted to create an application like this, it certainly wouldn't be free. True we could make it open source (and thus freely available by nature) but that would require a lot of volunteer time from many quality programmers that can work together efficiently, and for what? To create a tool that will make it 10x easier for commercialize applications (ie. PT/HM) could use to make money.

I just don't see this happening.

[SixthSense]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you guys think that amount won/lost by each player should be included in the PokerHandXML or should it be the interpreters responsibility to calculate this itself? Obv all the information is available in the document for the application to do this.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the PokerHandXML format should be as simple as possible. It shouldn't have any extra information that can't already be determined from the rest of the hand. So I would say won/lost info is redundant (unless its the only way to figure out the rake).

I see why people want it to be easy to query, but that's really a separate problem. Once the simple PokerHandXML format is determined, others can write converters that transform it to a QueryPokerHandXML object, that has lots of extra tags/fields to query each action (e.g., could fold BB to steal, could 3-bet, did 3-bet, hand rank, win % on flop), to query won/lost info, etc.

-Ben

[Tickner]

Interesting idea!

[rvg72]

I agree - the purpose of this xml format is to describe a hand and it should be done in such a way where nothing is lost but in my mind very little else should be added, for example, values that can be calculated.

A couple fields that I don't think have been mentioned are Tourney finish and Tourney winnings (amount won in tourney if player ends tourney on this hand). It is relevant to a hand so if it is there then it should be included.

Also, first draft doesn't necesarilly need to include non hold'em games (although it would be great if it did), we need to make sure that the format works for other games. I don't think that is going to be an issue but I don't want to see a hold'em standard and then a omaha standard and a triple draw standard. I want a poker hand with a game property that indicates that it is Omaha or whatever.

rvg

[Shoe Lace]

[ QUOTE ]

Even if I wanted to create an application like this, it certainly wouldn't be free.


[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I missed the memo where we weren't doing anything with the files directly. Are we pretty much preying that Josh adds it to PTv3 and rvg adds it to HM in addition to supporting the actual sites people want hands converted to?

Btw, aren't you already doing it for free with the Lego Converter or do you have some under the table black market data mining service running (read: selling the hands you convert to various players/sites)? [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]