For some fun, I decided to write a pokerstars hand history parser.

The purpose of the parser is to look at a hand history file and extract meaningful information for each hand it contains. The information is collected in a structured way... i.e. one big honking $hands array.

I collect the table name, game type, pokerstars hand number, tournament number and blind level (if a tournament), player names, seat locations and chip counts, and all action each player takes throughout the hand. Essentially all useful information found in the hand history file for any given hand.

I knew deep down that this would require regex work - but I first started parsing with some string functions. And before I could even fully parse the first line of a hand history file I knew this approach would be far too slow.

So, I was forced to re-instroduce myself to regular expressions. I've used them before, but not too often for tasks requiring complex multi-line processing. For the most part the regex work went well. But, every so often I would bump up against a stupid problem where the pattern I was using 'should have' worked but wasn't returning the results I expected. Such is life in the world of regex debugging.

I've been know to play a hand or two of poker. Americans tend to play quite a bit of poker. But, last week US congress passed a bill that would make it harder for Americans to play their favourite game on-line.

I could try and tell you what that idea is a bad one - but instead I'll point you to Cringely's article on the topic from last week.

10/06/06: Risky Business

My favourite quote - "Any random group of 535 nerds is smarter than the 535 members of the U.S. Congress."

Duh!

andre

Okay, I'm very guilty of saying that I'm going to do something on this blog and not following up.

So, I'm doing some house cleaning. This one is an update on the Degree Poker Championship from May.

I played again this year and busted out about 150 out of 250 at the 200/400 50 ante level of the blinds. This was about 5 minutes before the break.

But, I'm sure the field thinned very quickly after that. With about 150 people left, that meant the average chip stack at that point was @$3300. The next level was 400/800 blinds with a 75 ante. So the average M (for harrington readers) was under 2 for most players. Not that you could go two laps because blinds were going up quicker this year and you could only get about 10 hands in per level.

How'd I go out? With the better hand of course ;-).

But before then... I was mainly blinded down through the first two and a half levels and HAD to try and double up before the third level. I pushed with a 74s from first position (I'm telling you I HAD to push with any two cards). I got a caller from second position and the table slowly folded around. I announced "I'm pretty sure you are way ahead before this flop." He responded, "I'm not so sure," showing his K7o. "Well maybe," the guy finally says after seeing my trash. But, the flop gave me a pair of 4s and I was doubled up plus some much needed blinds.

The other day I was reading Daniel Negreanu's blog.

He was writing about blowing off some steam and playing some hold em 'in the dark'. Here's was he had to say:

After that I decided to play in the dark. I informed everyone at the table that I was going to do the following:


1) Never look at my cards unless someone else bets 2) Raise the minimum every hand before the flop 3) Bet the minimum on EVERY street without looking


This sounds like suicide, but it's nowhere near as bad as you might think as a strategy. Several of the players were amazed with how well it appeared to work and we broke into a full scale strategy discussion about the merits of using the strategy.

So I decided to implement this strategy myself in some micro micro stakes no-limit on line. I plopped myself down at a 0.01/0.02 table and I too informed everyone what I was doing.

Almost one year ago I played in the 2005 degree poker chapionship.

Roughly one month ago they announced registration for the 2006 degree poker championship

Today, I found out that I have won another seat and will be playing again this year.

Last year I went out about 58-60th out of my group of 250. This year I hope to improve on that. But, the structure for this year's tournament is somewhat tougher. Its kind of a tripple shootout. You must finish top 20 in your group of 250 and move on - and finish top 20 again in another group of 250 - then beat out everyone to take the title.

If the blind structure is the same as last year then I will have to play a bit more agressively than I did last time. By the time you are into the 3rd hour of play the antes alone can chew up your chips. Still, there is no point it going hard only to bust out in the first level.

So we're playing trivial persuit pop culture edition (v2.0) and the following exchange takes place:

A In what sport would you find "buckle bunnies"?
C I don't know... man I hate sports questions.
A Well, think of things with buckles that could be a sport.
C Pirates!
A (laughing) What kind of sport is Pirates? How does that game go?
J (without missing a beat) Aaaaaarrrrrrr. Two points.

Yes - the game of Pirates where pirates say Aaaaarrrr and get points awarded accordingly.

andre

A while back... like in August of 2004 - I wondered what one million dots might look like. So I made a picture just to see.

Well, since then a number of enterprising individuals have come up with a money maker. Selling advertising one pixel at a time on a million pixel grid.

A google search for Million Pixel Ads returns a long list of sites selling pixels for anywhere between $0.05 to $1,000 per pixel. There is even a site that tracks the "pixel wars".

One person started 'the war' by being the first to make $1,000,000 selling pixels. Then came the copycats.

One article I read about this phenomenon noted that its one of those ideas so simple one must ask "why didn't I think of that?"

Way back - some time ago - I was a student at Barton Secondary. During my time there I took several arts courses including Animation with Steven Gal.

While taking that course Brian Froud (the actor - See block on the left) and I created an animated short. We wrote, directed and starred (well our voices starred) in roughly 30 seconds of silliness.

We had filmed this masterpiece - but sometime between then and now the tape was lost forever.

However, recently Brian unearthed the original drawings, and this past Friday he dropped them off at my place. Today I had the chance to scan each and every one those drawings and stitch them together with Windows Movie Maker.

You can check it out by clicking on the image above.

I haven't re-recorded the audio portion of the film and I haven't created titles or added any other affects - but you get the picture.

Boy, I've just not been keeping up with my blog.

It occurs to me that some people I know check my blog just to know what is going on in my life.

Professional:
Well - a while back I started a steady paying gig with another company. Like Be Circle they work primarily with not for profits and, in fact, are a non profit themselves. They also happen to be a Drupal shop - so the fit is nice and I'm glad to join their team.

Programming:
I've been playing around with Zend Studio Enterprise and must say that I am very impressed. Having a debugging session with code on a server is very handy. And all the integrated tools/features are nice too.... CVS - FTP - SQL etc. Its a bit sluggish on my desktop machine - since that machine doesn't meet the min requirements (800mhz+) - but it works beautifully on my laptop.

Play:
I've been halloweening with my girlfriend for the past couple of weeks. She's done most of the work, but I signed on for a couple of projects including a "neon" sign I made using EL wire.

Man - has it really been forever since I've posted anything? Yup. It has.

Its been a somewhat busy summer of work and play and its kept me away from my blog.

So what's new?

I now have a laptop. A pretty sweet machine too. Intel mobile device with a gig of ram - a kickass 15.4 widescreen display at 1600x1000 - every immaginable device connection and of course wireless connectivity...

Which of course inspired me to finally put the wireless router i purchased for "free" (after rebate) into use. So I finally have a wireless network at home - Saa-weet!

What have I been working on?

I've been developing a Druapl theme for a client.
I've been training others in the use of Drupal.
I've been working on a couple of programming jobs.
I've been building a poker site.
I've been building a simple google maps application to show the locations of all Toronto shootings of the summer.

What have I been playing with?

My laptop of course.
My work projects... its great that I consider work to be play.

Anyone that has watched even twenty minutes of poker on television will know what "Big Slick" is. For the other 6 people that don't know, "Big Slick" is a nickname for a poker hand consisting of an Ace and a King.

Hold-em Poker has dozens of these nicknames for hands. To some 77 might be 'hockey sticks,' and 88 could be 'snow men' (both getting their name from their shape - if you hadn't noticed or hadn't cared to think about it). To others A5 could be 'high five,' or A8 is 'the dead man's hand.'

Well, I would like to coin a new name for a hand.

I think that from this day forward, King Four should be known as "Wil Wheaton."

I've been reading a lot of WWdN (Wil Wheaton dot Net) lately as he's been recounting his experiences playing at the World Series of Poker.

If you read up on Wil you will find that K4 keeps giving him troubles (and nightmares). Wil seems like a nice enough person and I think it'd be nice to name a poker hand after him - especially since its one that gives him so many headaches.

Today was the first round of the eastern portion of the Degree Poker Championship.

I played in group 1A this morning - with emphasis on the word morning. I had to be at Niagara Fallsview Casino and Resort by 6:00am for registration, which meant a 4:00am wakeup-call to leave time for the 1 hour drive.

I arrived at the Casino shortly after 6:00 and was registered by 7:00 leaving a half hour to grab breakfast at the lobby diner. After coffee and a bagel in the spiffy art deco eatery, I headed to the tournament room and tried to prepare myself mentally for the game.

I wasn't worried about the good players - I was sure I could hold my own against them. I was more worried about being called by some ninny holding 9-2 off suit after a big raise only to have him hit trip nines on the river. Thankfully, once things got started, my worries were put to rest. The ninnies (as I call them) didn't seem to be at my table - and the couple of marginal players at my table were playing tight and seemed to know better than to try really stupid.

I was playing an on-line tournament getting ready for the Degree Poker Championship and just wasn't catching any breaks.

First off about 10 hands in I geat dealt AA. Raise nicely pre-flop - have three callers (yippy a big pot). Flop comes Kc-6d-Ac - SUPER - floped a set and there is a king to keep people interested. Another raise - call - call - fold. Turn comes garbage. Raise (still two callers). River comes Qc!!!... Check.

One player raises large. Second player calls. I'm no ninny. Board shows possible straight possible flush. I have every reason to believe both of these monkies have been chasing their flush since the flop. I fold. Sure enough both are sitting flush - One with Jack in his hand.

It was a smart fold - but a fairly bad beat.

The tournament goes on and 30 more hands of garbage. Short stacked I know I have to take a stand on a hand, but none are worthy. Then finally, a nice AKs. Raise, re-raised, raise all in.

I've won a seat at the Degree Poker Championship.

On June 21st and 22nd I will be going to Casino Niagara to play against 1000 other people for a chance to win $1,000,000 and a seat at the 2005 World Series of Poker Championship held in Las Vegas on the week of July 7th.

I guess I have to go into training. I know I'm capable of beating 45 people in a tournament... but there are going to be more than 20 times more people at this event. Another thing is that most of my poker experience is on-line. Its entirely different playing face to face with people at a table.

But, last night I did manage to come 3rd out of 45 people at a friendly (no stakes) double-shootout tournament at a local pub. I might have finished higher, but I went off of my game plan and bluffed a pot all in when I should have checked. C'est la vie... I fell victim to the slow play... and paid the price.

Today I won my first poker tournament.

Yippy for me. I signed up at... (oh look at me spam my own blog)... Poker Stars. Its free... or at least thats the option I chose.

They have tournaments running constantly... so called "sit and go" tournaments. Basically they announce that a tournament is about to begin and the first 9, 18, 27 or 45 people to sign up play (the number depending on the size of the tournament). You play with and for fake money. Its a plain elimination tournament... you keep going until there is only one person left standing.

I've played a handful of these tournaments and have placed 'in the money' (i.e. top 5/6) half the time. Today I won. Good fun!

andre