Six Plus Hold'em on iPoker

[coon74]

Hello,

As you might be aware, the iPoker network is going to deploy Six Plus Hold'em tomorrow (perhaps at selected skins first, incl. Bet365, Titan, William Hill, I reckon, and some skins like Gala and Coral on the 29th).

The game has been discussed e.g. in a 2+2 thread http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip-sponsored-online-poker-report/ipoker-launches-six-plus-holdem-macau-game-tom-dwan-phil-ivey-promoted-1589721/ (that has links to relevant pages at iPoker sites) but I've seen no posts about your plans regarding this poker variation so I'd like to know if it's on your agenda to add its support to PT4 (or HM2, for this matter) in any way.

The only differences of Six Plus Hold'em from normal 52-card Hold'em are as follows:

1. The game is played with a 36-card deck, with ranks (in ascending order of priority) 6, 7, 8, 9, T, J, K, Q, A.

2. In addition to the straights as per usual Hold'em rules, A6789 unsuited is also regarded as a straight that is lower than 6789T. (I.e. aces can act as fives.)

Likewise, A6789 of the same suit is a straight flush that is lower than 6789T of the same suit.

3. The ranking of 5-card hand categories is as follows, in descending order of strength:

Straight flush
Four of a kind
Flush
Full house
Three of a kind
Straight
Two pair
Pair
High card

I.e. the straight is swapped with three of a kind and the full house is swapped with the flush as opposed to standard Hold'em rankings. That's because the hitting probabilities of the hand categories with the 36-card deck in use are different from the 52-card version.
_____________

Otherwise the game is the same as usual Hold'em - each player receives 2 hole cards and 5 community cards are dealt (3 on the flop), the player's hand on showdown is the best of those 5-card hands that can be made from the hole cards and the board (i.e. from 7 cards in total), and the structure of betting rounds is the same.

Of course we (players) yet have no access to hand histories (they'll be sent to you if needed), but I suspect that the only difference of their format from the one of usual Hold'em HHs will be the name of the game variant in the file header.

The most difficult task for you (if you do want to support the game) seems to be the need for a new 7-card hand evaluation function / lookup table - the presence of the A6789 straight makes standard hand evaluators useless. Clearly, the new evaluator would be of only slightly lower complexity than the normal Hold'em one, and of much higher complexity than a low hand evaluator in Omaha Hi/Lo, so I think it would take some coding effort (rewriting the usual Hold'em evaluator code for the 36-card case). And of course the database structure would need to be changed slightly to distinguish the new variant, though the fields would be just clones of those for usual Hold'em.

Please let us know about your plans regarding this poker variant (incl. whether its support will be included in the Hold'em version of PT4 or sold as a separate product) and ETAs if applicable.

Thanks in advance!

[coon74]

Actually, you don't even need to write a new evaluator - the existing one for 52-card Hold'em will work fine with a couple of patches (plus obviously a redesign of the hash function so that it put straights below trips and full houses below flushes), namely:

1. Evaluate the 7-card hand from the 52-card Hold'em viewpoint.

2. If it's a straight in HE, replace all the cards of one (any) of its ranks by deuces and query the lookup table once more; if trips are detected, update the hash value of the hand accordingly.

3. If it's two pair or worse in HE, check if it contains A6789 (if so, then it's the low straight).

4. If it's an ace high flush in HE, check if it contains A6789 of the suit (if so, then it's the low straight flush).

Of course, no 7-card hand can contain a flush and a full house at the same time, and also, step 2 isn't needed for the 5-6-card evaluators that you use for the flop/turn hand values, as no 5-6-card hand can allow for both a straight and trips.

I'm not sure if the described patch is optimal, but I hope it doesn't slow the evaluator down too much.

[WhiteRider]

Thanks for your information. The development team are aware of this new type of holdem and are investigating the possibility of supporting it, but I can't yet give you a definitive answer about this.

[coon74]

Thanks for the heads-up!

I don't mind either way as it's clear how much work it would take you to offer a complete and consistent product, you don't like to provide partial band-aid solutions

So now I know at least that I'm looking forward to an extended 'honeymoon phase' of the history of the game variant when none of its regs will have a HUD working with it

If you do produce the 6+ Hold'em version, I'll be almost forced to buy it (if I still play 6+ then) due to the network effect. I won't be able to do without a tool that almost everyone else in the games will have.

[coon74]

Wow, that was fast!

Thank you so much for making the HUD work with 6+ HE in v. 14.4.9!

You've saved me a bit of time, I had woken up today with a determination to write a few lines of AHK code to make the HUD work but you pre-empted me.

[WhiteRider]

Please bear in mind that for 6+ holdem since the hand strength orders are changed some of the related filters may not work correctly, and I believe that equities won't be correct either.

[coon74]

Well, of course the equities are calculated incorrectly (i.e. as if it was 52-card Holdem), but what was needed is the ability to track those statistics that don't rely on hand strengths and equities (VPIP, PFR, actual winnings, rake, standard deviation etc.) and place a HUD on the tables. PT4 does all that well because it writes winnings into the database as they appear in the HH file regardless of hand values (e.g. when a set beats a straight, PT4 does mark the owner of the set as the winner). Thanks!