History
Before the advent of real-money online poker servers, there was the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) poker server. The server was programmed by Todd Mummert, with support code by Greg Reynolds, and other Usenet rec.gambling.poker enthusiasts.
The participants in these games were mostly computer geeks with a passion for poker. Many were serious students of the game, armed with the analytical skills needed to understand the mathematics, and all other aspects of advanced poker strategy.
As a result, the IRC games were probably the best free-money games ever played on the Internet (much better than the free-money games available on the major online servers today). Higher tiered IRC games, such as #holdem2 and #holdem3, required larger bankrolls to qualify, so only players who won consistently in lower games were eligible. Some of these people were regular $20-40 casino players, and used IRC to explore the boundaries of good strategy and further hone their abilities.
One IRC regular, Chris "JESUS" Ferguson, went on to become the World Champion in 2000, and has won six World Series of Poker championship braclets (and counting). Others, including Jay "Sippy" Sipelstein, and "Tiltboy" Perry Friedman, have also won gold braclets, and many others such as Steve Brecher, Paul Phillips, and Greg Raymer are accomplished tournament players.
Sadly, the IRC games are now gone (but might be resurrected one day).
The IRC Observer Bot
Michael Maurer wrote a program called Observer that sat in on IRC poker channels and quietly logged the details of every game it witnessed. This resulted in the collection of the more than 10 million complete hands of poker (from 1995-2001) that constitute the IRC Poker Database.
Using the IRC Poker Database
The IRC data may be useful to poker programming researchers and hobbyists. Basic information (such as decoding tar.gz files) is not provided here. Users are encouraged to post their methods and results to the Poki Poker discussion group, or the GNU Poker Source discussion group (whichever is most appropriate).
In the past, the IRC data has been used to address some interesting
questions, such as Michael Maurer's early studies of
Variance in IRC Hold'em and
Variance in Short-Handed Hold'em. To find other interesting
Usenet articles based on the IRC Poker Database, go to
Google Groups rec.gambling and search for combinations such as:
[maurer variance group:rec.gambling.*]
[maurer IRC data group:rec.gambling.*]
[maurer observer group:rec.gambling.*]
The README.TXT file
The format of the data and some instructions for using it are given in the README.TXT file, which is appended at the end of the directory. For convenience, it is appended here as well.
IRC Poker Logs (Texas Hold'em, Omaha/8 and 7-Stud/8)
====================================================
About seven years of play on the IRC poker channels has been recorded and is
presented here in a tabular format. The database contains over ten million
hands. The entire play of each hand is recorded including the hole cards
exposed at the showdown; unfortunately, the hole cards of folded hands are
not available.
The database contains the record of the following IRC channels:
#7stud 7-card stud stud high/low (8 or better)
#7studhi 7-card stud high
#botsonly 10-20 Holdem (reserved for bots)
#h1-nobots 10-20 Holdem (reserved for humans)
#holdem 10-20 holdem (the original channel)
#holdemii 10-20 holdem
#holdem1 10-20 holdem
#holdem2 20-40 holdem ($2k minimum buyin)
#holdem3 50-100 holdem ($5k minimum buyin)
#holdempot Pot-limit holdem
#nolimit No-limit Holdem
#ohlpot Pot-limit omaha high/low (8 or better)
#omaha 10-20 Omaha high/low (8 or better)
#omahahi Omaha high only
#omahapot Pot-limit omaha high only
#ptourney Pot-limit omaha tournaments
#tourney No-limit holdem tournaments
Anybody could join IRC and get 1000 in chips for free, but some channels had
minimum buyins greater than 1000. Players had to win chips by playing on the
smaller limit tables to be able to play on the higher limit tables. This
scarcity of chips made them valuable and encouraged people to play their best
game.
Each database contains a file 'hdb' which summarizes each hand in a single
line, a file 'hroster' that records the list of players dealt in on each hand,
and a file 'pdb.[name]' for each player that summarizes that player's actions
during each hand. The corresponding lines in each file all have the same
'timestamp', a large integer that uniquely identifies the hand in question.
An example hand is shown below, extracted from the #holdem3 database. Every
file was searched for the timestamp 766303976; the matching player lines were
sorted into the order in which they acted in the betting. A complete
description of each column is given at the end of this document.
HAND INFORMATION (in hdb file)
------------------------------
timestamp hand # #players/starting potsize
dealer #play flop turn river showdn board
766303976 1 455 8 6/600 6/1200 6/1800 3/2400 3s Jc Qd 5c Ah
ROSTER INFORMATION (in hroster file)
------------------------------------
766303976 8 Marzon spiney doublebag neoncap maurer andrea zorak justin
PLAYER INFORMATION (in pdb.* files)
-----------------------------------
player #play prflop turn bankroll winnings
timestamp pos flop river action cards
Marzon 766303976 8 1 Bc bc kc kf 12653 300 0
spiney 766303976 8 2 Bc cc kc f 10237 300 0
doublebag 766303976 8 3 cc r b bc 7842 500 0 Jh Qh
neoncap 766303976 8 4 f - - - 7857 0 0
maurer 766303976 8 5 f - - - 12711 0 0
andrea 766303976 8 6 cc c c f 7190 300 0
zorak 766303976 8 7 r c c cc 4460 500 0 As Kc
justin 766303976 8 8 c c c r 4304 500 2400 Ad Qs
In English, the database entry says that 8 players are at the table; Marzon
makes a small blind (B), spiney makes a big blind (B), doublebag calls (c),
neoncap folds (f), maurer folds (f), andrea calls (c), zorak raises (r),
justin calls (c), Marzon calls (c), spiney calls (c), and finally andrea calls
(c) [no respect for zorak]. The pot is $600 and we have 6 players. The flop
comes 3s Jc Qd, Marzon bets (b), spiney calls (c), doublebag raises (r) with
two pair, etc. On the turn, Marzon and spiney check (k) to double bag, who
bets, etc. On the river, justin catches an ace to make aces-up, raises and
wins the $2400 pot. Note that we don't know the cards of those who folded
before the showdown. Also note that the format does not record exact bet
amounts in pot-limit or no-limit, though they can often be inferred from the
total pot size after each round.
The following is a column-by-column description of the data files' format:
HDB format
==========
column 1 timestamp (supposed to be unique integer)
column 2 game set # (incremented when column 3 resets)
column 3 game # reported by dealer bot
column 4 number of players dealt cards
column 5 number of players who see the flop
column 6 pot size at beginning of flop
column 7 number of players who see the flop
column 8 pot size at beginning of turn
column 9 number of players who see the flop
column 10 pot size at beginning of river
column 11 number of players who see the flop
column 12 pot size at showdown
column 13+ cards on board (0, 3, 4 or 5)
HROSTER format
==============
column 1 timestamp
column 2 number of player dealt cards
column 3+ player nicknames
PDB format
==========
column 1 player nickname
column 2 timestamp of this hand (see HDB)
column 3 number of player dealt cards
column 4 position of player (starting at 1, in order of cards received)
column 5 betting action preflop (see below)
column 6 betting action on flop (see below)
column 7 betting action on turn (see below)
column 8 betting action on river (see below)
column 9 player's bankroll at start of hand
column 10 total action of player during hand
column 11 amount of pot won by player
column 12+ pocket cards of player (if revealed at showdown)
The betting action is encoded with a single character for each action:
- no action; player is no longer contesting pot
B blind bet
f fold
k check
b bet
c call
r raise
A all-in
Q quits game
K kicked from game