jneufeld / sidearm

An excuse to try Elm by making a poker hand-reading tool. Abandoned after on-call eradicated my spare time. Elm ❤️

sidearm

A browser-based tool for practicing the skill of hand reading in no-limit hold 'em poker

Ideas

Hand reading is a core skill of poker. Imagining an opponent has exactly one hand (e.g. AKs) is dubiously precise and rarely accurate. Assuming too wide a range (e.g. all pairs, all suited aces, all suited connectors, etc.) may be accurate but the limited precision is of no practical value.

Sidearm uses user-supplied hand histories to train hand reading. Instead of focusing on the player's actions (i.e. fold, check, bet, or raise), it plays the hand and asks the player to predict their opponent's range. The goal is to improve the skill of hand reading by increasing both accuracy and precision.

Also, I wanted an excuse to learn Elm.

Status

I worked on this during my spare time and during a low intensity phase at work. Inevitably, work intervened, and I didn't have time to complete it. The real value was mucking around with Elm and being reminded of the power and frustration of Haskell-like type systems.