Hi RW9 Here is my dataset, just two colunms. I don't fully follow your code, I'm getting errors. ... View more

Thanks ballardw. What I mean is that on of the fields in my data set is the transaction date for each transaction in my dataset. The fields looks like this: POLDTR 20130302 20130211 20130807 20130202 20130117 ... ... The start date is the min of all these dates and the end date is the max. Also, is there a way of including a 'total' row for the table as shown above? ... View more

Hi Hai.kuo Thanks for your help. In your update, have you changed your code so no a steal weel still qualifies for a straight? Re the speed, that's great. I really appreciate your help - i wouldn't have been able to come up with something like that myself. I have drafted up an email and I was going to PM you. Would that be ok? I've just outlined the background of what I'm trying to do. Thanks ... View more

Thanks Astounding What's your opionion on using IML for this job? Rick has mentioned using a pairwise algorithm for comparing hands but I'm not sure how that would work without having a complex algorithm since poker hands don't follow a natural ordering or score - comparing a flush with a straight? I know there is some order but I don''t know how you would see if one hand is better than the other without go through loads of checks. If you are familiar with IML would you propose a logic for achieving this? Regarding your approach I have two questions: 1. Is my code above on the right track assuming a change to the number system you have outlined. I will still need to do a load of checks to determine rank i.e. check for flush, straight, 4 of a kind etc. 2. Will having a table with 2.6m entries be too slow. Let say I want to run 300 games and each game has 6 players and 50 plays - how long do you think this would take? Thank you Matthew ... View more

Thanks Rick, Well if you knew of resources thgat covered pairwise comparisons in sas that would be a good start - do you cover these in your books? Thanks ... View more

Hi Ballardw I think for what I'm doing IML sounds like the way to go. I've downloaded the free SAS University edition as my company doesn't uses SAS 9.2 which does not have SAS/IML. I also think from the feedback on the forums that a pairwise algorithm is the best apparoach to follow for evaluating which cards are best amongs 6 players. I was wondering if you know of any good resources that would help me write the code for this algorithm. Thanks Matthew ... View more

Hi Rick Thanks for your advice. Would you know if any good resources on generating a pairwise algorithm in sas. Also, does it work if there are 6 players and you are trying to determine the best hand, second best and so on? I work with a team of actuaries who currently don't use (and who are unaware of IML) but I think this would be highliy benefiocial as speed is always an issue for us. We would be working with huge data sets. We have all have SAS version 9 licenses - is it excpensive to get IML as an addition? Thanks Matthew ... View more

Thank you Stephen Can I ask, what is IML and how is it different? I will definitely use it if it's faster as I want to simulate 100s of games based on player assumptions regarding players for quick 6 player games i.e. ones that only last 25 minutes or so. The program will incorporate everything from increasing blinds to probailities of pushing all-in etc. I will start with a simple game and build it up. Is the coding much different in IML? Also, would you have the code or advice for evaluating poker hands? I play lots of online poker and I'm using this as a way of looking alligning my strategy closer to an optimal approach. Thanks ... View more

Unfortunately I don't have that feature in the version of sas I use - it's my company's software so I can't get it. I think it's prohibitively expensive. Do you have code for a card evaluator as well i.e. somthing that reads any 5 card hand and allocates a rank so you can determine which player has the best hamnd.  ... View more

Hi Astounding I've started writing the code for the poker hand evaluator. Basically the algorithm looks up 5 cards (in order of number e.g. 02S 03D 07H 12H 13D) and it is run through the code to check if it's a straight flush, 4 of a kind, full house etc. and a unique hand value is assigned to the hand. So for a royal flush, the value is 1 and four hands have this value, for a straight flush king high, the value is 2, and so on. I'm just wondering if my approach is too tedious and I'm overcomplicating things? I'm using lots of else do; end; and macros within macros and alhough I will get it out eventually, if there's a better approach I'll use it. Otherwise i'm happy to work away on the code below. The dataset Sample is just a five column data set with the fields card1,card2,...,card5 with values in the form as above. Thanks I would post the code directly but I can't paste into these forums. ... View more