Automating Session Reviews

[callydrias]

Abstract: I am presenting an automated, web-based method for organizing and executing session reviews. (There, I don't want to see any tl;dr's now.)

(Mods: This is software-related, but given the audience, I think this forum may be better for getting ideas and working out specs. No other related threads will be created in this forum (by me).)

I really enjoyed the session review we had last week and had a thought that the whole process of organizing the sesion review could be automated. Not only that, but one could submit a session at any time to get reviewed even if there were no group reviews being organized. I've already coded up a bit of it, so the idea is very workable. Here's how I see it working:

Submitting a session:
You create a (free) account on the web site. Once logged in, you can upload a hand history file. You can make your session either public or private. If public, anyone can see and choose to review it; if private, you will receive a session ID which will be required by anyone wishing to review your session. You will be able to see the status of your session at any time, including who is reviewing your session and how far along they are in the review. You can "review a review" and go through and see and respond to comments left by reviewers at any time.

Reviewing a session:
If someone wants you to review their play, they will give you a session ID, which you can use to access the session on the web site. You may also browse sessions that people have made public, sorting by site, limit, and number of hands. When the review process is initiated, you'll see one hand at a time with the option to make comments. You can skip throught the hands as you'd like, but you'll only get credit for a completed review if every hand either has a comment or "No comment" applied.

Features/Notes:
* Hands could/will be prettied up a la hand converter.
* You can review your own session, so you can use this solo if only to make the hands pretty.
* Statistics will be kept on how many sessions you've submitted, how many reviews you've performed, etc.
* There may be a submission/review ratio restriction implemented to keep people from taking without giving, though that's pretty easy to work around.

Privacy Concerns:
* All submitted sessions would have a 2 week lifespan before they're purged from the server (too strict?).
* You would have the option to make your session publicly browsable. If private, a reviewer could only access your session through a unique session id provided by the session owner.
* Hand history numbers would be mangled.
* Hero's identity can be changed to whatever he likes.
* All opponents' identities can (will?) be changed in such a way that you can follow the action from hand to hand.

I'd like this to be as simple as possible while being as effective and usable as possible. So, what do you think?

[Guruman]

doo eet mang! DOOOOO EEEEEET!!!!

[numeri]

I like it.

I'm still planning on continuing the coordinated session review as before, but this would be a nice tool.

[waffle]

i love this idea, and i've been kind of mulling over it in my head. i suggest that instead of a string of prettied up text, there is a graphical replayer that shows the hands in some sort of graphical format, as if you were actually playing.

this would be much easier to review. basically, we'd have a 'video' service, except, we would only be using trivial amounts of bandwidth, and we would be able to access each parts of the hand very precisely. (like, you could make a link to the replayer replaying one specific hand.)

also i think there should be provisions for obfuscating your opponents' names and yours as well. and maybe a way to provide reads on them. and there should be an awesome way to do comments. maybe on the site itself, or a button you would press that would automatically start a thread and paste in the relevant text or something. maybe i'm dreaming of this thing being much larger than you intended =P

i just woke up so i probably didn't fully grasp your post, if i went over something that you already mentioned i apologize. and if you need a perl programmer pm me.

[callydrias]

Dream away! The more ideas suggested, the better chance of improving the usability.

Yes, there will definitely be provisions for hiding yours and your opponent's identities. You will also be able to make comments directly on the site, so everything is all stored and accessible together. Think something along the lines of hand review posts here on 2+2 except you get the context of the whole session. Basically, once you upload your session file, you won't need to refer to anything other than the web site from then on.

I like the hand replayer idea. If I knew any flash programming, I might give it a shot. Java is another option, but the replayer itself may be a bit too ambitious for the amount of free time I have. If you or anyone else wants to donate that kind of function, I think it would be an excellent addition.

What I've written so far is all Perl, so I might hit you up if I need a hand anywhere. Thanks for the feedback!

[callydrias]

So far 4 people have voted option three, but I haven't seen too much in the way of concerns. Let's hear them!

[waffle]

we might be able to make a replayer using that AJAX crap but yeah, it sounds like a nightmare to make. i'll investigate

[Aaron_]

[ QUOTE ]
So far 4 people have voted option three, but I haven't seen too much in the way of concerns. Let's hear them!

[/ QUOTE ]

I love the idea. My only concern is that the site would quickly become inactive unless there was some way of encouraging users to review without taking away from the quality of the reviews. I'm afraid that the site would eventually become flooded with hand histories without many active reviewers. The reason it doesn't happen here on 2p2 is because it is actively discouraged -- In an unsupervised setting, I can't think of a reasonable way to discourage "over posting" without forcing users to review.

I'd love to see a site that resembles the semi-monthly session reviews here. This type of setting encourages participation and gives an immediate sense of community (something that web sites thrive on). For example (and right off the top of my head), the site would host a session review, however frequently, and limit participation to so many users (maybe 10 or 20). Registered users would signup for these sessions and upload their hand history. The site would then randomly assign a hand history to each of the participants, who would review each hand and submit these comments back to the user before some deadline. The site could even break down the histories into individual hands and randomly assign 50 hands to each participant. This way users and their hand histories are "connected" instead of just "hosted".

The great thing about having a web site host these "round table" session reviews is that they would be automatically and quickly organized, and infinitely extensible in how they are organized.

Sorry to ramble on with ideas. I'd be interested in helping you develop the site if needed. My email address is adhall@gmail.com -- I'll be checking the thread too.

EDIT: clarity

[callydrias]

The idea for keeping people from overposting without doing any reviews would be to put an upload/review ratio in place. For example, for every 2 reviews you complete, you can upload 3 sessions to be reviewed.

My vision (not the hallucinogenic kind) is that each history will be broken up into separate hands and displayed on separate pages for review. Breaking them into groups for random assignment would be very easy.

[gonzopro]

[ QUOTE ]
My vision (not the hallucinogenic kind) is that each history will be broken up into separate hands and displayed on separate pages for review.

[/ QUOTE ]

So sessions would not be reviewed as a whole? We will not have any reads and some people are gonna see a lot of preflop folds. Or are you suggesting we only submit hands in which we saw the flop? I would want my sessions and the ones I review to be complete 100-200 hands.