Freezeout Poker.

An easy to run Poker server with web and native clients.

Features

• Multi tables tokio server.
• egui web and native client.
• CLI crossterm client.
• Poker bot clients with custom strategy.
• WebSockets encryption over Noise Protocol.
• Message signatures for players and server identity.
• Docker image to run the game server and a nginx server that serves the web client.
• Fast hand evaluator.
• A Poker cards crate with egui cards textures (see example).

Installation

To play Freezeout poker you need to run a server that accepts connections from player clients and a client to connect to the server and play games.

Install the server

Precompiled freezeout-server binaries for Linux, Mac, and Windows are available on the release page. If you have Docker installed follow these steps to run the server.

Install the client

You can run the client as web application in a browser or as a native application.

When running the client in a browser there is no installation step but you have to run a web server to serve the client, if you have Docker installed you can start a container that runs a nginx server that serves the client.

For the native client there are precompiled freezeout-gui binaries for Linux, Mac, and Windows on the release page.

Running the server

The Freezeout server has the following options:

$ freezeout-server --help
Usage: freezeout-server [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -a, --address <ADDRESS>      The server listening address [default: 127.0.0.1]
  -p, --port <PORT>            The server listening port [default: 9871]
      --tables <TABLES>        Number of tables [default: 10]
      --seats <SEATS>          Number of seats per table [default: 3]
      --data-path <DATA_PATH>  Application data path
  -h, --help                   Print help

The first two options --address and --port configure the server networking. The --address option sets the server’s listening address, the default 127.0.0.1 (localhost) limits connections to the local machine, while 0.0.0.0 allows remote connections. The --port is the listening port clients connect to.

The --seats option sets the number of players that have to join a table for a freezeout game to start, once a game has started no other player can join the table and the game ends when one player has won all the chips. The number of seats goes from 2, for a heads up game, to 6 seats.

The --tables option sets the number of tables players can join, a player can only join a table if a game hasn't started and will get an error if all tables are busy. This option is useful to limit the number of concurrent games and reduce load.

The --data-path option sets the folder path where server data files are stored, by default this is set to the standard applications path. The data folder contains the database files for the players and the server signing key that is used to sign messages sent to the clients.

Running the egui client

The Freezeout UI native client has the following options:

$ freezeout-gui --help
Usage: freezeout-gui [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -a, --address <ADDRESS>  The server listening address [default: 127.0.0.1]
  -p, --port <PORT>        The server listening port [default: 9871]
  -s, --storage <STORAGE>  The configuration storage key
  -h, --help               Print help

The --address and --port options set the address and port the client connects to, the optional --storage option sets the key for storing settings data to disk, this is useful to keep client settings separate when running multiple clients, for example if you run one client with:

$ freezeout-gui -- -s alice

and another client with:

$ freezeout-gui -- -s bob

then the clients will store their settings in different namespaces and will not overwrite each other's settings. Client settings include the client window position and the player identity that must be unique for each player at a table, if two clients with the same player identity join a table they will join different tables.

When the app starts it shows a connection dialog that contains a nickname field, a passphrase field with a generate button to generate a new phrase, a player identifier label, and a connect button to connect to the server.

The passphrase is used to generate the private key for signing messages sent to the server, each message includes the signature and the client public key to verify the signature, the player identifier is the hash of this public key and represents the players identity as only the holder of the corresponding private key can generate valid messages.

Once connected the client shows the account window that contains the player nickname, the player identifier, the total chips amount, and a join table button. When the player presses the join table button the buy-in amount is detracted from the total chips amount and if a table is available the player joins a table.

When a player joins a table the client shows the game view that contains the table and the players seats, each seat shows the player identifier, nickname, chips, cards and the player action, a countdown timer shows the active player.

The client controls the player at the bottom and it shows action controls when it becomes the active player, pressing ? shows keyboard shortcuts for the various actions.

Running the web egui client

To run the web client for development go to the gui crate and run trunk serve:

$ trunk serve
 ...
INFO 📡 serving static assets at -> /
INFO 📡 server listening at:
INFO     🏠 http://127.0.0.1:8080/
INFO     🏠 http://[::1]:8080/
INFO     🏠 http://localhost.:8080/

then load the UI in a browser using one of the URLs in the output. Note that clients running in different browser tabs share the same connection settings so you may have to generate a different identity before connecting if you want the client to join the same table during testing, you can do this by pressing the generate button in the connection dialog.

The index.html contains the server and port parameters under the server-address element, these need to be changed for a production deployment, the web docker image does that automatically when you run the container.

Running the CLI native client

The CLI client is a simple crossterm client to quickly interact with the server, to run it with cargo:

$ cargo r -p freezeout-cli -- --help
...
Usage: freezeout-cli [OPTIONS] --nickname <NICKNAME>

Options:
  -n, --nickname <NICKNAME>  This client nickname
  -h, --host <HOST>          The server listening address [default: 127.0.0.1]
  -p, --port <PORT>          The server listening port [default: 9871]
      --help                 Help long flag

When the client player action is requested you can use the following shortcuts:

• f fold
• c call or check
• b bet
• r raise
• q for exit
• Up/Dn for to adjust betting chips
• Enter to confirm betting action

Writing a bot

You can create a bot that connects to the server and reacts to game events by implementing the Strategy trait from the freezeout-bot crate, for an example see the simple bot.