Say the payout in chips, not just in money

"Ann - $135" is the answer to the arithmetic. The dealer's actual job at that moment
is working out that $135 is a black, a green and two reds, while four people watch
them do it.

The chip legend has known the denominations all along. It was only being used to read
chips *into* an amount -- counting a seat's stack -- and never to turn an amount back
into chips.

  Final Payouts
    Ann - $135
    1x$100, 1x$25, 2x$5

Largest first, which is greedy and so not optimal for an arbitrary set of values. Poker
chips are not arbitrary: every real set is canonical -- each denomination divides the
next, 1/5/25/100/500 -- and greedy is exactly optimal on those. A dealer who invents a
3-and-7 chip set still gets a valid answer, possibly one chip longer than it needed to
be, which is a fair trade for not solving a knapsack in a modal.

Two cases where saying nothing is the right answer, and one where it is not.

A table with no chip legend gets the amount on its own -- it has not told us its
denominations, so there is no advice to give. But a legend that exists and cannot reach
the amount does say so: "$3 no chip covers" when the smallest chip is $5. Half a dollar
in a dollar-chip game is the dealer's problem to solve and they can only solve it if
they are told, so it is never rounded away.

12 tests (244 total): the breakdown adds up to the amount across eight amounts, cent
chips make cent amounts exactly, a jumbled legend still pays largest first, the colour
comes along for a future caller, and the two no-advice cases are told apart from the
cannot-reach one.

Driven through a real all-in hand at four sizes: $135 reads "1x$100, 1x$25, 2x$5" and
a tournament-sized $1,350 reads "2x$500, 3x$100, 2x$25", fitting without spill down to
360px. With the legend emptied the line disappears and the payout stands alone.
Contrast clean, no console errors.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015bnp7xKUPFFSpwkYNFaPgb
This commit is contained in:
2026-09-01 17:08:49 -06:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 3fe16fa7f2
commit ddb3907ace
4 changed files with 157 additions and 0 deletions
@@ -48,6 +48,58 @@ const Money = {
return (this.toCents(amount) / 100).toFixed(2);
},
// The chips to actually push, for an amount.
//
// A payout figure is the answer to the arithmetic, not to the dealer's job: they
// still have to work out that $132 is two blacks, a green, a red and two whites
// while six people watch. The chip legend already knows the denominations.
//
// Largest first, which is greedy and therefore not optimal for an arbitrary set of
// values — but poker chips are not arbitrary. Every real set is canonical (each
// denomination divides the next: 1, 5, 25, 100, 500), and greedy is exactly optimal
// on those. A dealer who invents a 3-and-7 chip set gets a valid answer that might
// use one chip more than it had to.
//
// Anything the smallest chip can't make comes back as `remainder` rather than being
// rounded away: a 50c share in a game whose smallest chip is a dollar is a real
// problem for the dealer to solve, not a rounding error to hide.
chipBreakdown(amount, legend) {
let cents = this.toCents(amount);
if (cents <= 0) return { chips: [], remainder: 0 };
const values = (legend || [])
.map(chip => ({ chip, cents: this.toCents(chip.value) }))
.filter(entry => entry.cents > 0)
.sort((a, b) => b.cents - a.cents);
const chips = [];
values.forEach(entry => {
const count = Math.floor(cents / entry.cents);
if (count <= 0) return;
cents -= count * entry.cents;
chips.push({ value: this.fromCents(entry.cents), count, color: entry.chip.color });
});
return { chips, remainder: this.fromCents(cents) };
},
// "2×$50, 1×$25, 2×$1" — the breakdown as a dealer would say it out loud.
//
// A table with no chip legend gets nothing rather than "$132 no chip covers": it
// hasn't told us its denominations, so there is no advice to give and the amount
// stands on its own. A legend that exists but can't reach the amount is different,
// and does say so.
formatChipBreakdown(amount, legend) {
const hasDenominations = (legend || []).some(chip => this.toCents(chip.value) > 0);
if (!hasDenominations) return "";
const { chips, remainder } = this.chipBreakdown(amount, legend);
if (chips.length === 0 && remainder === 0) return "";
const parts = chips.map(chip => `${chip.count}×${this.format(chip.value)}`);
if (remainder > 0) parts.push(`${this.format(remainder)} no chip covers`);
return parts.join(", ");
},
// Should focusing this field select what's already in it?
//
// Every amount box in this tool opens pre-filled with a suggestion: the raise pad
@@ -246,10 +246,23 @@ const PotWizard = {
empty.textContent = "Nobody has money in this pot yet — mark seats \"In hand\" and set contributions first.";
wrap.appendChild(empty);
} else {
const legend = (this.state && this.state.chipLegend) || [];
const list = document.createElement("ul");
for (const [id, amount] of this.totals.entries()) {
const li = document.createElement("li");
li.textContent = `${this.playerLabelById.get(id)} — ${Money.format(amount)}`;
// The amount is the answer to the arithmetic; the chips are the answer
// to the dealer's job. Only when the legend has been filled in — a
// table that never set up chip colours gets the number on its own,
// which is what it had before.
const chips = Money.formatChipBreakdown(amount, legend);
if (chips) {
const note = document.createElement("span");
note.className = "payoutChips";
note.textContent = chips;
li.appendChild(note);
}
list.appendChild(li);
}
wrap.appendChild(list);