dozenal Poker

About

5 Card Draw Poker with dozenal (base twelve) deck and chips. The deck has 5 dozen cards.

Object

Within each game, to win the chips in the pot, which is all the bets made by all the players during the game. The pot may be won either by having the highest ranking poker hand or by making a bet that no other player calls. Within a session of multiple games, to obtain all the chips.

Here's ranking of poker hands:

1. Straight-Flush

2. 4 of a Kind

3. Full House

4. Flush

5. Straight

6. 3 of a Kind

7. 2 Pair

8. 1 Pair

9. High Card

Odds

Here's a comparison of poker hand odds for a decimal 52 (4 dozen 4) card deck, versus a decimal 60 (5 dozen) card deck. All values are in decimal (base ten).

The dozenal deck, with its 5 dozen cards, has lower odds for all hands except the Flush. There's about the same odds for getting a Flush. With the decimal 52 card deck a Straight is about 2x more likely than a Flush. With the decimal 60 card deck, the Straight is only slightly more likely than the Flush. Comparing the 2 decks, over decimal 1,000 hands, you'll see 39 less 1 Pairs, 12 less 2 Pairs, 3 less 3 of a Kind, and 2 less Straights. Otherwise the lower odds don't have much consequence. This makes for less fun, as we like to get highly ranked hands. The other consequence is betting intuition. If we're tuned into a decimal 52 card deck, our intuition needs a bit of tweaking for the decimal 60 card deck. In time we'll adjust to the new odds. I'll let you decide if less fun is still enough fun.   

While not related to Poker, the 5 dozen deck has an advantage for card games where players get hands of equal size. The 5 dozen deck is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 players.

Not related to odds, but the 'hand rank' tab has insight into how the poker ranking algorithm works.

Image Credits

The Wizard of Oz images came from iHeartCraftyThings.com. The images are based on 1939 movie. The book was written by L. Frank Baum in 1900.

The card back image is from OpenGameArt.org. Author and open license is at link

The image for the 4 x 4 player face avatars came from, iStockPhoto.com, downloadable with free trial

Revision History

Ver 1.01, Sep 2024

Implements a 4 player, 5 card draw poker game. The poker hand ranking algorithm knows best hand as well as identifying cards to discard for draw round. There's simple betting algorithm, allowing fully autonomous play. No human player input. The user can only observe, and click green table for next game.

Includes help page, with help drop down selectors for categories and topics. App has a logo and browser icon. Displays in landscape (typically desktop) or portrait mode (typically phone).

Future plans

The following features will be added. First on list is to add human player input. Look for a release in the Q1 2025 time frame. For other features the list does not necessarily reflect the order they'll be implemented:

• the human player interface for betting and discarding/drawing

• The portrait layout will change to be more clear as to whose chips are whose. It will be rectangular rather than L-shaped.

• The intention is to add a 6 player option, and retain the 4 player option. 

• The dealer will pick the poker game. Support will be added for 5 card stud, 7 card stud, night baseball, and texas hold em. Currently favoring a player setting for this, rather than a model dialog box at each game start, even if just for the human player.

• Wild card support

• Storage and retrieval of prior session (persistent memory)

• A settings page, to include number of players, dozenal ten, elv symbol options for deck and text, amount of ante, each computer player's favorite game, and any wild card(s).

• status messages will use a text color scheme; white neutral, blue winning news, yellow losing news, red bankruptcy

• After each game, a chip exchange to ensure no player runs out of white and red chips, if they have higher value chips to exchange.

• A face avatar option for players.

Feedback is welcome. See Contact me.