30dayers

Steve McLeod: Finding Leaks with Colour and Bars

Steve McLeod — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:19:00 -0800

In preparation for a set of new "Leak Detector" screens in Poker Copilot, I'm reading Stephen Few's "Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis". The subtitle is tedious, better would be "Make Awesome Charts."

I'm getting a lot of value from Few's book on using colour and simple charting techniques to make analysis easier. Here's what I started with:

The info is there, but you have to read and compare all numbers carefully to spot the patterns.

Step 2: I added colour to show positive and negative numbers:

Now we can immediately see that I've been losing money with 44, and winning with all other pocket pairs. But some info is still hiding, requiring careful manual analysis.

Step 3: Show the magnitude with a coloured bar:

Ho ho! Now the patterns are clear. I'm doing something wrong with TT and 99, which should be good earners: my winnings are positive but only just. Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks are all paying out well, so I'm happy with the way I play them.

Steve McLeod: The Tao of Programming

Steve McLeod — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:30:00 -0800

From The Tao of Programming:

A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the
requirements document for a new application. The manager asked the
master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five
programmers to it?"

"It will take one year," said the master promptly.

"But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it
take if I assign ten programmers to it?"

The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two
years."

"And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"

The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be
completed," he said.

Steve McLeod: Preview of Poker Copilot 2.20

Steve McLeod — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:04:00 -0800

Poker Copilot 2.20 is now available to download. This is a preview release. It's almost identical to last week's update, except it works. PowerPC HUD problems and HUD flakiness are, to the best of my knowledge, fixed.

Update Instructions:

Download version 2.20 here.
Open the downloaded file.
Drag the Poker Copilot icon to the Applications icon.
If prompted to replace an existing version, confirm that you do want to replace.

Now you're done and ready to hit the tables.

Steve McLeod: PowerPC Issue Resolved

Steve McLeod — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:27:00 -0800

Software bugs are so much easier to fix when you can reliably reproduce them. I now realise I should have got myself a PowerPC Mac for testing Poker Copilot eons ago.

With the help of my newly-purchased old school PowerPC-based Mac Mini, not only did I quickly and easily find and fix the "No HUD for PowerPC in Poker Copilot 2.19" issue, I also found some other minor issues.

Before I release an update though, there's more testing to be done. So far the signs are positive. I played on four poker tables at once for a couple of hours, tracking Poker Copilot's CPU usage and memory usage. I'm happy with the results. This chart shows Poker Copilot's CPU usage for a period of about an hour from that 4-tabling session:

Steve McLeod: Mac: It Just Works...Except When It Doesn't

Steve McLeod — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:18:00 -0800

I bought a PowerPC Mac Mini on eBay last week. The goal: use it to reproduce problems Poker Copilot users experience on PowerPC Macs. And to improve my test lab.

The Mac Mini came from a Berlin eBay seller to Cologne on Saturday morning. But the OS X reinstall DVD wouldn't work. Turns out it was for a slightly different model of Mac Mini, and didn't like being used on my model. So back to Berlin with the Mac Mini on Monday morning.

This morning it came back to me as speedily as a well-thrown boomerang, this time with the correct DVD. At start-up, a freshly installed Mac OS X 10.4 greeted me. Nice. Exactly what I wanted. But it wouldn't connect to my wireless Internet modem. With no good reason why. Ah bugger. These are supposed to be the problems that Windows users faces. Not me in my brave new world of Apple.

So...there went the greater part of the day figuring out a solution. These are problems I enthusiastically embraced when I was a student. But not now.

The cause of the problem: I had Mac OS X 10.4. The original. 10.4.nothing. Once I got a newer version of Tiger on to the machine, life became better. Updating on a machine without Internet access made things somewhat tricky.

And best of all...when I run Poker Copilot 2.19 (a sort-of unreleased blog-readers only version) with Full Tilt, I experience the exact problem people raised. Yes. Now I can try the solution I've quietly put together.

Stay tuned...

Steve McLeod: Queues, the Software Panacea

Steve McLeod — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:39:00 -0800

There's a fun story here about how two Microsoft support guys back in the late 80s worked out how to crash the entire support team's phone system.

It was right about then everyone's phones died. Anyone who was talking to a customer was cut off, and our phones didn't work at all for about 20 minutes.

The underlying problem was too many logging statements being written to a database, which got overloaded, crashed, and then crashed the phone system. My immediate thought: they needed a queueing system for logging statements.

It's quick to put something in a queue. The system can take items from the front of the queue at its leisure. It will catch up with backlogs when people are at home sleeping.

Poker Copilot is full of queues. Queues, queues, queues. It seems almost every difficult technical problem I face in Poker Copilot can be solved with a queue.

When hand history files are updated, Poker Copilot places them in a special queue where the most recently updated files go to the front. A busy little worker thread takes a file off that queue, parses the file and places each parsed hand into another queue. When you move poker tables around, causing the HUD to move, there's a queue. Feature usage tracking is placed in a queue. Twice. First on your computer and then on the feature tracking server. All database queries in Poker Copilot are placed in a queue.

Java version 5 and upwards makes queues easy. It has several types of thread-safe queues with high concurrency built in.

Steve McLeod: You know someone likes your software when...

Steve McLeod — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:26:00 -0800

...he buys it twice. Here's the story:

"I bought Poker Copilot twice because I absolutely needed it at the time to make money. My email was broken, and one of my hard disks containing the Poker Copilot license key was broken too, so I bought it again."

Of course all he had to do was e-mail me for the original key, but it may have taken some hours or even a day for me to respond.

Steve McLeod: Java Then And Now

Steve McLeod — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:07:00 -0800

Alex Miller ponders how software development in Java has changed over the last ten years:

I did all my coding back then in Programmer’s File Editor (PFE), which had the basic advantage that it wasn’t Notepad.

In 2005 I still found some people coding Java in basic text editors instead of wonder-doing IDEs.

Steve McLeod: Sentence(s) of the Day

Steve McLeod — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:41:00 -0800

From Clay Shirky:

An internet user in rural Utah has access to more books than a citizen of Greenwich Village had before the web. Millions more books.

Steve McLeod: Nifty iPhone Poker App

Steve McLeod — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:45:00 -0800

It's called THETA Poker and it lets you play No Limit Texas Hold'em on the iPhone. You play against a range of surprisingly subtle AI players, each with their own characteristics.

It's highly playable. And perfect for passing time on public transport or in a doctor's surgery.

This game got me thinking about what it would take to make a good AI poker player.

The danger of any computer game where you play against a computer-controlled player is that you quickly learn the style of that player, and develop a counter-style. You become adept at beating the computer but not necessarily at beating real life players. Real life players adapt to your counter-style and develop a counter-counter-style.

It would be fun to be a computer science honours student these days. If that were me, my honours project would be developing an adaptive AI poker player that measures up each opponent and alters its play accordingly. It would also add a random factor to particular plays. And would modify its playing style every so often, to confuse the humans. Tight-aggressive for 10 hands or so, then Loose-Aggressive for another 10 hands or so. A few rounds of obsessive blind-stealing, then backing off for a few rounds.

It could be that every second CS honours student is already doing this - and then unleashing it as a bot on the world of online poker.

Disclaimer: The creator of THETA Poker and I did a "you can have my software if I can have yours" arrangement.

Steve McLeod: I was interviewed for a podcast...

Steve McLeod — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:23:00 -0800

...a year ago at a software conference. The interview was conducted by Mike Dulin from the Association of Software Professionals. Listen here.

Steve McLeod: 30 Day Trial AND Money Back Guarantee

Steve McLeod — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:12:00 -0800

Someone on the Business of Software forum asked about using a "if you are not satisfied, we'll give you your money back" guarantee instead of a 30-day free trial.

I think a software company should consider offering both.

You want to reduce the feeling the potential customer has of "taking a risk" when they buy your product. This makes people far more likely to purchase.

Take stock of your own feelings next time you are parting with a significant amount of money. Feel the sense of risk. Feel the sense that it might not be what you want. Consider what would alleviate that sense of risk. What about a chance to try it first? and a no-questions-asked money back guarantee?

It works. That's why many software companies offer both. That's why the Poker Copilot home page mentions both:

Steve McLeod: Full Tilt's New "Run It Twice" Gimmick

Steve McLeod — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:55:00 -0800

Ah crap. Full Tilt has introduced a new feature called "Run It Twice". "Run It Twice" hands seriously screws things up for Poker Copilot.

There's a sample hand history below in which I've changed the names to protect the innocent. One game number, one flop, two turns, two turns, two rivers, two pots. This doesn't fit into Poker Copilot's database, model or user interface.

I'm not sure what to do about this. Any smart readers got a nifty suggestion?

Full Tilt Poker Game #1111111: Table ZZZZZZ (heads up) - $5/$10 - No Limit Hold'em - 11:11:11 ET - 2009/11/11
Seat 1: XXXXXX ($1,029.50)
Seat 2: YYYYYY ($1,273.50)
YYYYYY posts the small blind of $5
XXXXXX posts the big blind of $10
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to XXXXXX [3d Ad]
YYYYYY raises to $30
XXXXXX calls $20
*** FLOP *** [4c Qd 6d]
XXXXXX checks
YYYYYY bets $50
XXXXXX raises to $150
YYYYYY has 15 seconds left to act
YYYYYY has requested TIME
YYYYYY raises to $390
XXXXXX raises to $999.50, and is all in
YYYYYY calls $609.50
Players agree to Run It Twice
XXXXXX shows [3d Ad]
YYYYYY shows [Qh Th]
*** TURN 1 *** [4c Qd 6d] [8h]
*** RIVER 1 *** [4c Qd 6d 8h] [4h]
*** TURN 2 *** [4c Qd 6d] [As]
*** RIVER 2 *** [4c Qd 6d As] [Kh]
*** SHOW DOWN 1 ***
XXXXXX shows a pair of Fours
YYYYYY shows two pair, Queens and Fours
*** SHOW DOWN 2 ***
XXXXXX shows a pair of Aces
YYYYYY shows a pair of Queens
YYYYYY wins pot 1 ($1,029) with two pair, Queens and Fours
XXXXXX wins pot 2 ($1,029) with a pair of Aces
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $2,059 | Rake $1
*** SUMMARY 1 ***
Pot 1 $1,029
Board: [4c Qd 6d 8h 4h]
Seat 1: XXXXXX (big blind) showed [3d Ad] and lost with a pair of Fours
Seat 2: YYYYYY (small blind) showed [Qh Th] and won ($1,029) with two pair, Queens and Fours
*** SUMMARY 2 ***
Pot 2 $1,029
Board: [4c Qd 6d As Kh]
Seat 1: XXXXXX (big blind) showed [3d Ad] and won ($1,029) with a pair of Aces
Seat 2: YYYYYY (small blind) showed [Qh Th] and lost with a pair of Queens

Steve McLeod: How to Be Rich

Steve McLeod — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:18:00 -0800

Marshall Brain has a fun slide-show called "How to Make a Million Dollars":

Last week I was invited to speak to a group of 200 students at Duke University. The organizers gave me pretty much free rein in picking my topic, so I decided to talk about [How to Make a Million Dollars].

How to make a million dollars is: a) something students are interested in, and b) something I am qualified to talk about. And the talk went really well. So well, in fact, that I have received requests for copies of the presentation.

The gist of it is to start a business. If it doesn't work out for you, start another. And another. And another. Until you succeed.

Here's three alternative ways to be rich:

1. Regularly spend less than you earn. It's slow but effective. You won't be mega-rich but you'll be richer than you are now.

2. Measure your wealth against those poorer than you. We usually define ourselves as rich or poor in comparison to those around us. So move to a neighbourhood where people mostly earn less than you. You'll have the biggest house and nicest car in your street. Better still, move to a country much poorer than yours. If you can keep your current income, you'll have a lifestyle the envy of those around you. Be careful though: with envy comes venom. You'll be an obvious target for theft.

3. Choose to define wealth in non-monetary terms. If you earn little but live as a bum in a Western Australian surfing town, catching glorious waves on a glorious beach every day, you'll have a rich quality of life. Expect to be looked down upon by your relatives who don't understand your lifestyle choices.

Steve McLeod: Problems with PowerPC Macs and Poker Copilot 2.19

Steve McLeod — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:56:00 -0800

I'm not certain if I've correctly identified the problem, but it seems that Poker Copilot 2.19 doesn't show the HUD on PPC Macs.

Here's what I've done about this:

You can download Poker Copilot 2.17 here. It seems that this works fully on PPC Macs.

Secondly I bought a PowerPC based Mac Mini on eBay today. You haven't been able to buy these things new for some time, so eBay was my saviour. As soon as it arrives I'll try to isolate and fix the problem.