The Poker Nerd

In Neal Stephenson’s book, Cryptonomicon, the character Enoch Root describes a low-tech, but arguably secure encryption algorithm which he calls both Solitaire (to describe its nature) and Pontifex (to obscure the fact that it’s done with two decks of cards.) The algorithm, invented by Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography, is an output-feedback mode stream cipher that uses a deck of cards for the cyphertext and can use a second deck of cards for the key. Schneier describes the algorithm in detail on his website. (more…)

I’ve got a Big Project I’ll be talking about shortly, but I wanted to kick out an interesting problem that’s going to be part of the bigger project. The question is: How do you numerically rank starting hands in Texas Hold ‘Em?

I’ve seen plenty of systems which categorize starting hands into groups. But, what I need is a programmatic way to give an absolute numeric value to all two-card starting hands. For a first iteration, it should fulfill at least all the following:

AA > KK > AK
AKs > AKo
AKs ~= QQ
22 > A2o > 72.

This is surprisingly difficult.