Creating Strategy GuidesAfter analyzing a hand, my analyzers then create two numerical values which describe the best play. The first is the Hand Type, which contains coded information that describes the cards which were held. The second value is the Rank/Sort code, which describes the ranks held and acts as a key that can be used to sort multiple plays which appear on the same line. Hand TypeThis numeric value describes the cards held. Here are the different possible values for each group of bits in the code:
Rank/Sort CodeThis numeric value describes the rank(s) held. It also serves as a key to be used when sorting multiple hands in the same group. Here are the various values it can contain:
The reason why there is a value for Ace-low is so that hands such as A23, A24, A25 appear first in a list such as "Suited A23, A24, A25, 89J, 9TQ". If this value didn't exist, the Ace in the hand would cause Ace-low hands to appear at the end of the list instead of the beginning. Final StepsAfter every hand has been analyzed and the values have been calculated, I loop through each value and group together those which have the same Hand Type code as well as the same Minimum, Maximum or Average value. After that has been done, I sort the list of groups by its Average value (highest to lowest) and present the results. DrawbacksThe basic strategy guides do not take penalty cards into account, and in fact are not perfect. The list is sorted by the average value of each play. It does not take into consideration hands where more than one type of play can occur, and which play is better. This means that, from time to time depending on the game and the paytable, the strategy guide will appear to have conflicting types of plays. For example, in 9/6 Jacks or Better, Suited KT appears lower than the play for keeping a King only. This looks like a conflict, because if all King-only hands beat all Suited King-Ten hands, then there would be no need for a Suited King-Ten line in the strategy guide. What isn't apparent in this situation is the fact that the average value of King Only hands was mostly obtained from hands where a suited Ten was not dealt along with the King. The expected value does not correspond to Suited KT hands where the Ten was discarded, except for the few situations where that is the better play. The expected value of keeping a King only in a Suited KT hand when it is not the best play would be much lower than either value. Whenever a particular play appears in the Basic Strategy guide, it means that at some point it is the optimal play. The program is designed to never include a play which is never made. For example, in some wild card games, keeping a single pair is better than keeping two pair. For these games, Two Pair will never appear in the strategy guide because it is never needed. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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