I don't know how important this is, but I doubt that's at all close to the actual distribution.  I would expect tiny bets to be the vast majority of bets placed.  I suspect that there are thousands of sub-1 BTC bets, and very few larger bets.

I will make a text file available detailing all the bets processed in the last couple of weeks, so that you can make a proper analysis.

But first I have to go light some fires and let a little dog out to pee. 

That's correct.  Here's an example - lots of inputs, many of which are small, and only 3 outputs, all of a reasonable size:
  http://blockchain.info/tx-index/24440537

The code that determines the 'required fee' is quite complex.  It depends of a whole bunch of factors.  0.0005 is more than is required for some transactions, and much less than is required for others.

It would probably be worth checking that the included fee is sufficient (according the satoshi client's rules) before processing each bet, rather than using a hardcoded value like 0.0005 or 0.001 BTC.

Like deepceleron says, if I place a bet made up of lots of 1 satoshi pieces, the required fee will likely be substantially higher than 0.01 BTC.

This is starting to look weird.  The slide just isn't stopping.  What's going on here?

That kind of makes sense.

If people are allowed to place bets with no fees, even when fees 'should' be included according to standard fee rules, the bet transaction will possibly take a long time to confirm.  Then, when they lose and their bet amount is used to pay out other winners, the payment to the other winners won't confirm until all the amounts from losing bets have confirmed, due to how bitcoin works.

So the 0.001 fee is an attempt to make sure that all bets confirm in a reasonable amount of time.

It occurs to me that it might be a little overkill to insist on such a fee for all bets if you want 'instant' results when not all small transactions really require a fee at all if they're high enough priority, but still, it's only a cent, so I guess nobody's going to complain.

Thanks for the update.  It's good to see you posting here more frequently recently.  I think this is a good place to keep players updated about changes and fixes to the pmpoker software.

I should be back home tomorrow and back at the poker tables. 

I'm guessing this is caused by fireduck's recent change, which he confusingly described as follows:


"either ... and ..." - not sure what that means.

I'm guessing what he meant to say is that bets aren't processed until they get into a block unless they have a fee of at least 0.001 included.  But his statement could be clearer.

I'd suggest including a fee of 0.001 BTC with a bet and see if that gets things going fast for you again.

https://i.imgur.com/173MX.png ?  It's working for me.  Maybe try clearing your cache or something?

If I was running SD you wouldn't know the secret.

Don't forget that it's not only good for PR to have more winning bets.  It's also good for reducing apparent profits and hence dividends.  Not that I'm accusing anyone of cheating.

What aren't you telling us?  You somehow knew about this "slide" before I published stats about it.  Are you in some way responsible? 

Anyway, the slide contines:

Right, but under the "Mental Poker" provably fair scheme, every play encrypts every card, and so if any player drops out, no further cards can be decrypted.  If a player drops out after the flop, the turn and river cannot be dealt.

There's no point unless you care about the word "provably" in the thread title.  SealsWithClubs probably runs "fair" poker.  But there's no way we can prove it.  For all we know, FreeMoney cheats sometimes, looks at other play hole cards, and wins more than he should.

Using "mental poker" techniques it's possible to be sure that nobody is cheating, since nobody is able to see other player's cards until they are meant to.  Under such a scheme there's no central authority (like FreeMoney is for all Seals games) who could potentially cheat his players.


If each player sends his entrance fee to the site operator before the game, and the operator splits it between the winners of the MTT at the end, that could work.  There's no need to mess with private keys - a simple "return winnings to address the funds came from" (like SatoshiDice does) could work.  You're having to trust the site operator to hold the funds for the duration of the game anyway, so you can also trust them to split it up correctly.

If you're not going to allow table resizing yet, then I think you should at least use a table size that will fit on a standard netbook screen.  I think there's a defined standard for the screen resolution of netbooks, and I expect it's smaller than the pmpoker table size.

My girlfriend only ever uses a netbook.  She tried playing pmpoker a couple of days ago but couldn't get as far as seeing a table due to other problems, so I don't know yet whether she would be able to see enough of the table to play.

Edit: I just checked.  Her screen is 1024x600 pixels.  Your tables are 800x600 not including the chat at the bottom.  The chat is a extra 146 pixels tall.  So she would be able to play, but not see any of the chat.

I like the update.

Just one comment: I don't like all the 'update' buttons.  I set 2 options in different sections, then clicked one of the update buttons, and it reverted the setting from the other section back to before I changed it.

I'd either have no update buttons, and have the settings automatically update when I changed them using some kind of onClick AJAX magic (preferred) or a single 'update' button at the top and/or bottom of the whole page.  Or if you could have the update buttons work 'in place' without refreshing the whole page and losing other changed-but-not-saved settings, that could work too.

I think their maximum bet was too high on some bets, and too low on others.  Their risk of ruin is probably still too high (depending on how deep Erik's pockets are, of course).

I'm from England.  But I'm in snowy BC, Canada.

Here's today's report, hot off the presses:

That is a problem.  I hadn't thought of that.

You could make players who drop out of hands and don't come back forfeit their stack, but that seems unfair to people who are having legitimate connection problems.  It also doesn't solve the problem because the person dropping out could have a tiny stack, and only be dropping out to help out his partner in collusion.

I wonder if players would accept a provably fair poker where after each hand the entire deck is made available.  That would allow you to easily provide a provably fair game, but at the expense of players never being able to 'muck' their cards.  I'm not sure that's a trade-off serious players would be willing to make.