A poker run can be a fun event experience, but if you've ever organized and run one - you might know it can be a real hassle to set up and run.
In 2002 I ran my first poker run for Michigan Geocaching Organization. I had some help setting it up so some of the work was distributed. We bought several decks of mini cards from the dollar store and stuffed them in tiny coin envelops so you couldn't see what the card was. Then we stamped each deck with a different stamp so we could tell when they were handed to us that they were all from different caches/decks.
The setup time was faily high, but what we did not then realize was that the hassle of collecting these at the event was where we were really about to get nailed.
On the event day, about 50 players (just enough for one deck per cache) participated. As they arrived back at event central, the line grew. People were waiting
forever for us to get through this. Each player would hand us a set of cards. One of us would open these tiny little envelopes and dump the cards out. Then we'd look at the cards and determine what their hand and rank was. By the end of 50 hands of poker, we were seeing double and people had waited in line more than 40 minutes just to turn in their hands.
There had to be a better way. Enter Dekaner and New York Geocaching wanting to do the same thing. Dekaner contacted me to see how it had gone. I told him it was a hit, but the handling of the cards coming in needs to be streamlined. I thought it was fun but as our events grew... there was no way we could handle 100 or more players!
He and I did some research and found that there were some very affordable bar code scanners on ebay and that we could pretty easily write something in Microsoft Access to facilitate a poker run for us. Off we went.
Dekaner did the database design and most of the front end development for the first version of our poker run software. I wrote the poker and scoring algorithm with a little help from my mensa friend Rusty ;) What resulted was version 1.0 of our poker run software.
The idea was that instead of actual decks of cards, we would place business cards with barcodes printed on them out in the caches. The barcodes would be a random string of numbers relating to one of 52 cards in up to many decks. Before each game, the codes are shuffled so they point at a different card. By doing this, the organizers can simply print the bar codes on standard business card stock (available at Sam's Club @ $6 per 1000) and not worry about conceling the card. Who cares? It's just a barcode! Nonsense until the computer translates it to a real card later.
Participants collect up to 7 cards. The program can support any number of cards up to 7. This means if someone doesn't care about completing the run - they can turn in what they have and see how they stack up. The more cards, the better the odds of winning of course... but there's some gamblers out there :)
Once they have their cards, they return to the event and wait to have them scanned.
The event organizers have the poker run software running and as each player steps forward, they record their name and scan the cards. As they scan, the computer translates the cards in real time so they can see their hand unfold. When all the cards are scanned in, the person running the program hits "save" and the program tells you what they have and how they rank. The leaderboard updates and if they are in the top 7, they will be displayed.
Dekaner used verison 1.0 for his poker run and came back with a slew of suggestions. I updated the software based on feedback and in February 2004 I used the 1.4 version of the poker run software to have a poker run with about 90 players. The wait was reduced from 40 minutes to about 20 and we had twice as many players as the first time.
Finally between then and February 2005 the software was used by a few other organizations to run their poker run with success. However the wait time was still an issue. Being a computer dude I tried to apply technology to the problem, but failed. Eventually I found the most simple solution to the line problem - eliminate it!
I created an alternative to the barcoded business cards. I used return mailing labels instead. This allowed the player to collect 7 bar codes and affix them to a single business card. The rules and a spot to write their name was on the other side. This time they collected up to 7 stickers, wrote their name on their card, and when they returned they dropped it in a box and went to have fun. The box was emptied periodically and brought to the scanning station where they announced who was being scanned and then scanned it.
It was kind of like watching the world series of poker run! :) This time we had 155 players and no wait in line at all.
It is a fun activity but nearly impossible to coordinate on the level of 150+ players without some kind of computer support. Next year I'm hoping to see 250 players!
The poker run software is available on request to geocaching groups that wish to use it at an event. The software is still fairly green and needs some work. Future plans include porting it to a format that can be distributed on CD and further improving the process of scanning cards. Right now features includes
- Interface to enter hands & see the hand
- Leaderboard view with top 7 players
- Report of all players and their ranking
- A report you can use to easily print your barcoded cards
Future efforts will allow the program to be linked to a list of RSVPs for "auto complete" of names. Also we are exploring how to facilitate multiple scanning stations and perhaps even a self service model for very large runs.
The software is scheduled to be completed sometime late in 2005 and will be freely available to geocaching organizations.
