Thread: Making a Poker Game

I need some help in writing this program that plays 10 hands of Poker and outputs to the user what his hand is.

The problem I'm having is trying to find out how to use suitsInHand[SUITS] and facesInHand[FACES] as counters for suits and faces in a hand.

suitsInHand is 4 counters that represents how many hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades are in the hand. These 4 counters must add up to 5. For example if you have 5 hearts in the hand of cards, the array would have the values 5,0,0,0

facesInHand is 13 counters, that represent how many two’s, three’s, etc. you have in the hand. This must also total 5. For example, if you have a pair of 3’s, and three Kings’s, this array would have the values 0,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,3,0

While dealing a hand of cards, keep a count of the suitsInHand, and facesInHand.

Code:

Points of interest for applying suitsInHand and facesInHand as counters for suits and faces of a hand

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <time.h>
#define SUITS 4 // suits of cards
#define FACES 13 // two - ace
#define AVAILABLE 0 // card not drawn from deck
#define TAKEN 1 // card has been drawn from deck
#define SIZE 5
#define TRUE 1
#define FALSE 0

void dealACard(char *suits[], char *faces[], int deck[][FACES]);
void dealAHand(char *suits[], char *faces[], int deck[][FACES]);
void analyzeHand(int suitsInHand[], int facesInHand[]); //igrone this for now

typedef int bool;
bool straight, flush, four, three;
int pairs;   /* can be 0, 1, or 2 */

main(){

	char *suits[4] = {"Hearts", "Diamonds", "Spades", "Clubs"};
	char *faces[13] = {"Two", "Three", "Four", "Five", "Six", "Seven", "Eight", "Nine", "Ten", "Jack", "Queen", "King", "Ace" };
	int deck[4][13] = { AVAILABLE }; // using array to make sure the same card is drawn from a single deck
	int i;
	int suitsInHand[SUITS], facesInHand[FACES];

	srand(time(NULL));

	for(i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
		dealAHand(suits, faces, deck);

 		analyzeHand(suitsInHand, facesInHand); // igrone for now
	}

	system("pause");
}

void dealAHand(char *suits[], char *faces[], int deck[][FACES]){
	int i;
	for(i = 0; i < 5; i++)
		dealACard(suits, faces, deck);
	printf("\n");

}

void dealACard(char *suits[], char *faces[], int deck[][FACES]){

	int suitIndex, faceIndex;

	suitIndex = rand() % 4;
	faceIndex = rand() % 13;

	while (deck[suitIndex][faceIndex] == TAKEN){
		suitIndex = rand() % 4;
		faceIndex = rand() % 13;
	}

	deck[suitIndex][faceIndex] = TAKEN;

	printf("%s of %s \n", faces[faceIndex], suits[suitIndex]);

}

/*
analyzeHand: Determines whether the hand contains a 
straight, a flush, four-of-a-kind,      
and/or a three-of-a-kind; determines the
number of pairs; stores the results into 
the external variables straight, flush,  
four, three, and pairs.                  
*/

void analyzeHand(int suitsInHand[], int facesInHand[]){

	int num_consec = 0;
	int rank, suit;

	straight = FALSE;
	flush = FALSE;
	four = FALSE;
	three = FALSE;
	pairs = 0;

	/* check for flush */
	for (suit = 0; suit < SUITS; suit++)
		if (suitsInHand[suit] == 5)
			flush = TRUE;

	/* check for straight */
	rank = 0;
	while (facesInHand[rank] == 0) 
		rank++;

	for (; rank < FACES && facesInHand[rank]; rank++)
		num_consec++;

	if (num_consec == 5) {
		straight = TRUE;
		return;
	}

	/* check for 4-of-a-kind, 3-of-a-kind, and pairs */
	for (rank = 0; rank < FACES; rank++) {
		if (facesInHand[rank] == 4) 
			four = TRUE;
		if (facesInHand[rank] == 3) 
			three = TRUE;
		if (facesInHand[rank] == 2) 
			pairs++;
	}

	if (straight && flush) 
		printf("Straight flush\n\n");
	else if (four)         
		printf("Four of a kind\n\n");
	else if (three && pairs == 1)   
		printf("Full house\n\n");
	else if (flush)        
		printf("Flush\n\n");
	else if (straight)     
		printf("Straight\n\n");
	else if (three)        
		printf("Three of a kind\n\n");
	else if (pairs == 2)   
		printf("Two pairs\n\n");
	else if (pairs == 1)   
		printf("Pair\n\n");
	else                   
		printf("High card\n\n");

}

I prefer to represent cards by a simple number from 0-51. There are thirteen cards per suit, which gives us the following:

Code:

suit = card / 13;
value = card % 13;

And if you really need to set a spot as unused, simply set it to 52.


Quzah.

If you let the card be a floating point then the ace of hearts can be 13.4 and the ace of clubs can be 13.1

that way cards of the same face value can be compared easily (13.4 > 13.1)

Amusing, yes. But I can pack a card deck into a byte using 0-51.

Code:

#define SAMEFACE(c1, c2) ((c1)%13 == (c2)%13)
...
if( SAMEFACE( c1, c2 ) )
    printf( "Cards are of the same face value.\n" );

Quzah.