This is the Go version of videopoker.
I did this because I was wondering how long it would take to translate a 1000-line C program into Go. It took about 8 hours. It was not difficult at all, but some things had to be rewritten into the way things are done in Go: no pointer arithmetic, and different handling of Unicode, random number generation, and stdin/stdout input and output.
To get it working, just run
$ go build videopoker.go
$ videopoker
See the manual page below for directions on how to play.
A text-based video poker for Linux.
Many variants of video poker found in casinos are included as options.
The cards can be displayed as black or color characters, and also as Unicode card faces.
It's a great way to practice your strategy for fun, or before going to a casino. The text-based playing action allows for quick play and more rapid training than with a GUI application.
Colored Text (-u1 option)
Unicode Suits (-u2 option, default)
Unicode Card Faces (-u3 option)
VIDEOPOKER(6) Games Manual VIDEOPOKER(6)
NAME
videopoker - a text-based video poker game
SYNOPSIS
videopoker [-b] [-b1] [-g game] [-is #chips] [-k 5-char-string] [-mh]
[-q] [-uD] [-v]
DESCRIPTION
videopoker is a text-based video poker game. It has an efficient user
interface that takes a little time to learn, but allows fast play and
requires only one hand to operate.
DISCLAIMER
By default, videopoker is intended to closely match the behavior of 9/6
Jacks or Better video poker machines in casinos, and an option allows
selection of other games and pay tables. However, the author is not an
expert on gaming, and no guarantee whatsoever is made that videopoker´s
behavior is an exact match to that of any other video poker. Please
take that into careful consideration before trying out a real video
poker machine.
HOW TO PLAY
Start the game and rest the fingers of your right hand on the keyboard
as when touch typing. Your thumb will be on the space bar, and your
index finger through little finger will be on the keys j, k, l, and
semicolon (;).
A five-card hand will be displayed. To hold cards, type the keys corre‐
sponding to the cards:
SPACE Leftmost card
j Second card from left
k Middle card
l Second card from right
; Rightmost card
The keys may be typed in any order, and a key can be entered more than
once to toggle the held/discarded state of the card. The backspace key
may be used to undo mistakes.
Then type the Enter key to deal. Discarded cards are redealt, and the
final hand is shown, along with how it is recognized as either a win‐
ning or losing hand, and the new score.
The game will continue until you either quit or run out of chips.
To quit, type either q or e, then the Enter key.
Changing the bet
To increase your bet from the default, type b, followed by a digit from
1 to 5, along with the keys to hold cards. For example,
lb4;
will hold the rightmost two cards, and increase the bet to 4x. By
itself,
b3
will increase the bet to 3x, but not hold any cards.
The increase takes effect starting with the next hand and stays in
effect until changed using the same method. The only exception is when
the number of chips is less than the bet, in which case the bet is
automatically reduced to make it equal to the number of chips remain‐
ing, where it will stay until you change it.
OPTIONS
-b
("Bold") Use boldface text output to display the cards. (When using the
-u1 and -u2 options only.)
-b1
("Bet 1") Use a minimum bet of one chip, rather than the default ten.
Typically used along with the -is option.
-g name
("Game") Play a different variant of video poker. The default is 9/6
Jacks or Better, but you can change it to another by specifying one of
the strings in the left column of the following list:
aa All American
tens Tens or Better
jb95 9/5 Jacks or Better
jb86 8/6 Jacks or Better
jb85 8/5 Jacks or Better
jb75 7/5 Jacks or Better
jb65 6/5 Jacks or Better
-is integer
("Initial Score") Start the game with integer chips, rather than the
default 1000. integer may be in the range of 1 to 100,000.
-k "string"
("Keys") Replace the standard " jkl;" input keys with the ones in
string, which must be 5 characters long and not contain a q or w char‐
acter.
-mh
("Mark Held") Print + characters under the cards that are held. This
option is helpful for new players, and also when testing the string
supplied with the -k option.
-q
("Quiet") Don´t print the banner at the start of the game, nor the
final message.
-uD
("Unicode") Control Unicode output. D is a digit from 0 to 3.
-u0 As with -u1, except all text is displayed in the default
color. (For monochrome terminals, or any terminals that
do not support ANSI escape codes.)
-u1 No Unicode. Suits are displayed with the characters C,
D, H, and S. Diamonds and hearts are displayed in red,
clubs and spades are displayed in the default text color.
-u2 (default) Display suits using Unicode playing card
suit symbols.
-u3 (Experimental) Display entire cards as Unicode characters.
In order for the -u1 or -u2 options to work, videopoker needs to use a
font that contains the necessary Unicode playing card characters. On
Linux, the monospace and DejaVu fonts may be used.
For -u2 to work, the system needs to be able to properly display Uni‐
code playing card characters.
Unicode playing card faces appear no larger than other text characters.
When using the -u2 option, increase the font size as necessary (i.e.,
24 pixels or larger).
-v
("Version") Print the version number and exit.
BUGS
When played with the (experimental) -u3 option, cards may not be
equally spaced apart. This may be due to improper handling of ANSI
escape codes (used to change text colors) and/or improper handling of
Unicode playing card characters by various virtual terminals.
VERSION
This manual page is for version 1.0 of the program.
AUTHOR
Jay Ts
(http://jayts.com)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2016 Jay Ts
Released under the GNU Public License, version 3.0 (GPLv3)
(http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)
Jay Ts December 2016 VIDEOPOKER(6)