Enter the SECT

[Ggrognon]

Hello,

I am a french poker player, but also a nerd sometimes. My poker nickname is Pprofesseur. With the help of another french poker player Victor118, I developped a tool called SECT : Showdown Equity CalculaTor.

I needed a tool to show me what should have been my winnings at Showdown without those f****** bad beats. I reminded myself of PokerEV tool (when I used to have PT2). It was cool to see my real winnings vs my expected winnings.

HEM gives you all-in EV at the street it went all-in. But it does not calculate your EV street by street. I then decided to do such a tool for me. I also decided to analyze not only all-in situations but *all* showdown hands. I developped such a tool. Usable only by me (a lot of manual code configurations were needed to make it work). It was so interesting (on my point of view and my poker friends) that I thought it might be helpful for a lot of poker players. But I had to make major changes to make it work for everybody. I dit it too (it took a lot of time).

SECT is written in JAVA to male it work on quite any platform (I hope so).

SECT is for HEM users. SECT reads the database created and filled by HEM to find hands and analyze them. Why HEM and not another tracker database ? I use HEM, so I developped for it. Maybe one day I will adapt SECT for other databases too, we'll see...

SECT analyzes only cash game NLHE hands. It was a big job to write a pokerstove-like in JAVA for Holdem hands, and I don't plan to do the same job for other types of poker in the short run.

---

RELEASE SECT 3.2.7

Previous version was v3.2.6.

What is new in 3.2.7 (compared to 3.2.6) :

• [BUG] There was a major issue : the more hands SECT was parsing, the slower it was. It used to freeze sometimes depending on the sample size. This is now corrected.
• [IMPROVEMENT] Speed is a little bit increased.
• [IMPROVEMENT] Graph default sized increased to avoid having to resize. Resizing graphs for big samples may be difficult (the drawing is redrawn and resource consuming). Graph is not made directly by SECT but by a library we use.

Important :

• SECT is only for Cash-Game hands in No Limit Hold'Em.
• SECT is only for HEM users (SECT reads the database written by HEM).

Upgrade from SECT 3.2.6 (previous version) to SECT 3.2.7 :

• Go there : http://www.sect.free.fr
• Download 3.2.7 .jar file
• Put 3.2.7 .jar file where you had 3.2.6 .jar file and use this new one instead.
• ... that's all !

Doawload and install SECT for the first time :

• Here : http://www.sect.free.fr
• Download version 3.2.7 of .rar file
• Uncompress .rar in a dedicated folder for SECT
• Edit (once for all) the .xml file
  • Replace "HoldemManager" by the name of your database if different
  • Replace "postgres" by your postresql login if different
  • Replace "postrepass" by your postgresql password if different
  • ... It's done !
• Double-clic on .jar file (SECT_v3.2.7.jar).
  • If it runs, great !
  • If the file is opened within a decompression tool (unzip, unrar, ...) it means your computer does not know how to handle .jar files. I advise to download and install the latest JRE (JRE 6 update 16).

Be aware :

• If you parse a very large amount of hands, at the end of the computation, SECT asks a library (not coded by me) to draw the graph. If you have a huge sample, the graph drawing may take a very long time. You will see an empty window while it is computing the drawing. SECT is not freezing. Just be patient. If you have 200K hands, there are 200K points to draw, and multiply this by the number of lines.
• When you leave blank start date, SECT understands you want to start with the very first hand in time. When you leave blank end date, SECT understands you want the hands until the last one in time.
• SECT computation is not instantaneous. I made the choix to develop all of this stuff in JAVA for portability reasons. I did not used the optimized librairies freely available for equity computation, but which are (quite) not (easily) portable. I rewrote evrythig in JAVA. Then everybody can use SECT. Computation is not very fast, but when you parse hands that you have already parsed before, you'll see that the computation is faster. Please note that I am thinking of a new version where once you've parsed a hand, the next time you do it again, it is quite instantaneous.
• Computation time is of course machine-dependent.
• HEM team is aware of the following : some Ongame play money hands are considered by HEM as real money hands... so does SECT, because SECT uses HEM database.
• It is good to stress this next point. SECT modifies nothing in your HEM database. SECT just reads this database, so it should be harmful.
• SECT makes women fertile, SECT makes men potent, SECT makes children good at school.
• What are these "corrupted SDs" ? SD = ShowDown. In HEM database, some showdown hands do not have hole cards for all the players who went to showdown. SECT is then enable to do its equity computation. FYI, corrupted SD hands are often the result of a HH change done by the pokerroom, before HEM updates to take this new HH grammar into account.
• If you wrongly configure the .xml file, nothing will happen when you launch SECT. Infortunately you'll see no warning message. I did not yet manage to handle this error. If you really want to know for sure if your problem is due to the .xml file configuration just launch SECT from the DOS command line. You'll see the errors messages.
• I do not advocate using SECT while playing poker and using HEM to grab hands and diplay HUD. To be honest, I did no test about that, and I say that as a precaution. One tool (HEM) writes in the database, while another one (SECT) reads it, so It should be ok. Anyway, SECT is a tool you will mainly use after having played.
• After computation, there is sometimes an expected auto-resize of the graphical interface. I am still trying to find why. Just resize the window and it is ok.

Wish list for future releases :
(I intend to go back to poker and develop less, you should take this into account )

• Let user choose if he wants a graph or not (graph drawing may be very long on huge samples)
• Change graph colors.
• Check other types of corrupted showdowns.
• It is sometimes difficult to resize the graph window when there are multiple lines.
• Handle the error when user wrongly configures the .xml file
• SECT does not recalculate a hand it has already computed. New parsings would only compute new hands.
• Choose date on a calendar.
• Chosse hour for dates
• Limit Holdem.

[Ggrognon]

(delete me)

[DonManuel]

I still wonder why this is not built-in in HEM...

[Ggrognon]

Yes I was wondering too, then I did it because I was too unlucky and I needed to prove it !


For information : I got now my 10 beta-testers. Already 2 new (private / beta testers only) releases. Things are going better and better. I will let you all know.

[klausschreiber]

sounds very nice. I hope, it will be public soon.

[Mon]

Looks really good. I was a betatester when Phil's started PokerEV, mainly testing Crypto hands (where I used to play). Please let us know when this will be available as soon as you can, cannot wait to run it!!

[Ggrognon]

I got my pool of ten beta-testers.

I've already done two corrective versions.

Things are going well, but step by step : I got a job, a couple life and try to play poker too .
My testers too, though we miss one each other very often.
I will let you know when it is ok.

For the moment, following first tests, what I can say is :
- everybody was able to launch it very easily : easy configuration and portable.
- found one major issue : SECT did not handle multiple accounts on different rooms with the same name. Now it is corrected.
- I got one tester who did not manage to run SECT : I will try to see that with him via skype/teamviewer.
- received different proposal for future evolutions.

[zenopyan]

Looking forward to it

[JPFisher55]

I'm really looking forward to this program. I expect my EV winnings to exceed my real winnings because if my opponent had a draw and folded on the river, then I will never know that my hand held up. OTOH, if my opponent hits a draw, then a showdown is more likely. So I will see more times that my opponents outdraw me than they actually do outdraw me; even though sometimes I will fold a hand when I believe that my opponent hit his hand and not know for certain.

Still, IMO, if my luck is average then my EV winnings should not exceed my real showdown winnings by more than 20%; otherwise I will know that I am unlucky.

[Ggrognon]

Hello,

I have released SECT v3.2.4. You will find all the details in the first post (I have edited it).


Have fun... and run good !