I'm writing a HandConverter of a poker hand. This is my first project and I'm trying to do it right from the beginning.
I got already the most parts, like lists of players, their position, stack sizes, cards for different boards, what game is being played and so on, but I struggle with the representation of the betting, especially the different raises, bets and multiple calls from the same player.
I found some cases where my naive case based solution does not work, and it's really complicated and I dislike it. As it currently works for NL Hold'em I think I'll have more workarounds to do if I want to implement games like Stud, Razz and so on altough the betting structure is likely the same.
For now I use this representation and I would like to improve especially the Round and Action classes. Do you have some suggestions for me?
public class HandHistory
{
public GameInfo GameInfo;
public TableInfo TableInfo;
public List<Player> Players;
public List<Round> Rounds;
public string rawtext;
public bool withHero;
}
public Round
{
public List<Action> Action;
public string Name;
public decimal Potsize;
public ulong Cards; //usually would have used a custom class,
//but I need them in a ulong mask for some library I use
}
public class Action
{
public Player Player;
public string Type;
public decimal Amount;
}
P.S. I'm also using a List to store the different rounds, is there better way like inheriting the round class for Flop, Turn and River e.g?
When you say first project what do you mean? I am guessing you are a student or new to programming.
Under that assumption I would suggest picking something simpler and than a poker hand history. As in game programming it is unreasonable to think on your first shot of programming a game you create the latest Call of Duty. You start with breakout and move up from there.
If you do not wish to start smaller than I suggest never jump into coding. When you do that you will spend more time just spinning your wheels rather than getting something done.
For instance you should first spend time designing what your program will do and what it will not do. Try to be as complete as possible. This can be done from something as complicated using a UML program or as simple as pen and paper.
I would flow out how you want a hand to progress. Information you want to track. Once you really understand this your data structures will start to come to life.
Since you are new to programming, I would start to write proof of concept code. Then move it to your final project. What I mean by proof of concept is code that you are just testing an idea to see how it works. For example, how would hand history work? Can you create some 'mock' history and set them up? Ideally you would unit test, but lets start a little smaller.
It is important to know that you are constructing a program, just like a house. You need to know what you want it to do and not do (blue prints). What each step is. And you build upon other pieces slowly. It is a process that takes time, but in the end is well worth it.