rlcard 1.2.0
A Toolkit for Reinforcement Learning in Card Games
Keywords: Reinforcement Learning,game,RL,AI

# RLCard: A Toolkit for Reinforcement Learning in Card Games
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[中文文档](README.zh-CN.md)

RLCard is a toolkit for Reinforcement Learning (RL) in card games. It supports multiple card environments with easy-to-use interfaces for implementing various reinforcement learning and searching algorithms. The goal of RLCard is to bridge reinforcement learning and imperfect information games. RLCard is developed by [DATA Lab](http://faculty.cs.tamu.edu/xiahu/) at Rice and Texas A&M University, and community contributors.

*   Official Website: [https://www.rlcard.org](https://www.rlcard.org)
*   Tutorial in Jupyter Notebook: [https://github.com/datamllab/rlcard-tutorial](https://github.com/datamllab/rlcard-tutorial)
*   Paper: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.04376](https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.04376)
*   Video: [YouTube](https://youtu.be/krK2jmSdKZc)
*   GUI: [RLCard-Showdown](https://github.com/datamllab/rlcard-showdown)
*   Dou Dizhu Demo: [Demo](https://douzero.org/)
*   Resources: [Awesome-Game-AI](https://github.com/datamllab/awesome-game-ai)
*   Related Project: [DouZero Project](https://github.com/kwai/DouZero)
*   Zhihu: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/526723604
*   Miscellaneous Resources: Have you heard of data-centric AI? Please check out our [data-centric AI survey](https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10158) and [awesome data-centric AI resources](https://github.com/daochenzha/data-centric-AI)!

**Community:**
*  **Slack**: Discuss in our [#rlcard-project](https://join.slack.com/t/rlcard/shared_invite/zt-rkvktsaq-xkMwz8BfKupCM6zGhO01xg) slack channel.
*  **QQ Group**: Join our QQ group to discuss. Password: rlcardqqgroup
	*  Group 1: 665647450
	*  Group 2: 117349516

**News:**
*   We have updated the tutorials in Jupyter Notebook to help you walk through RLCard! Please check [RLCard Tutorial](https://github.com/datamllab/rlcard-tutorial).
*   All the algorithms can suppport [PettingZoo](https://github.com/PettingZoo-Team/PettingZoo) now. Please check [here](examples/pettingzoo). Thanks the contribtuion from [Yifei Cheng](https://github.com/ycheng517).
*   Please follow [DouZero](https://github.com/kwai/DouZero), a strong Dou Dizhu AI and the [ICML 2021 paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.06135). An online demo is available [here](https://douzero.org/). The algorithm is also integrated in RLCard. See [Training DMC on Dou Dizhu](docs/toy-examples.md#training-dmc-on-dou-dizhu).
*   Our package is used in [PettingZoo](https://github.com/PettingZoo-Team/PettingZoo). Please check it out!
*   We have released RLCard-Showdown, GUI demo for RLCard. Please check out [here](https://github.com/datamllab/rlcard-showdown)!
*   Jupyter Notebook tutorial available! We add some examples in R to call Python interfaces of RLCard with reticulate. See [here](docs/toy-examples-r.md)
*   Thanks for the contribution of [@Clarit7](https://github.com/Clarit7) for supporting different number of players in Blackjack. We call for contributions for gradually making the games more configurable. See [here](CONTRIBUTING.md#making-configurable-environments) for more details.
*   Thanks for the contribution of [@Clarit7](https://github.com/Clarit7) for the Blackjack and Limit Hold'em human interface.
*   Now RLCard supports environment local seeding and multiprocessing. Thanks for the testing scripts provided by [@weepingwillowben](https://github.com/weepingwillowben).
*   Human interface of NoLimit Holdem available. The action space of NoLimit Holdem has been abstracted. Thanks for the contribution of [@AdrianP-](https://github.com/AdrianP-).
*   New game Gin Rummy and human GUI available. Thanks for the contribution of [@billh0420](https://github.com/billh0420).
*   PyTorch implementation available. Thanks for the contribution of [@mjudell](https://github.com/mjudell).

## Contributors
The following games are mainly developed and maintained by community contributors. Thank you!
*   Gin Rummy: [@billh0420](https://github.com/billh0420)
*   Bridge: [@billh0420](https://github.com/billh0420)

Thank all the contributors!

<a href="https://github.com/daochenzha"><img src="https://github.com/daochenzha.png" width="40px" alt="daochenzha" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/hsywhu"><img src="https://github.com/hsywhu.png" width="40px" alt="hsywhu" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/CaoYuanpu"><img src="https://github.com/CaoYuanpu.png" width="40px" alt="CaoYuanpu" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/billh0420"><img src="https://github.com/billh0420.png" width="40px" alt="billh0420" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/ruzhwei"><img src="https://github.com/ruzhwei.png" width="40px" alt="ruzhwei" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/adrianpgob"><img src="https://github.com/adrianpgob.png" width="40px" alt="adrianpgob" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/Zhigal"><img src="https://github.com/Zhigal.png" width="40px" alt="Zhigal" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/aypee19"><img src="https://github.com/aypee19.png" width="40px" alt="aypee19" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/Clarit7"><img src="https://github.com/Clarit7.png" width="40px" alt="Clarit7" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/lhenry15"><img src="https://github.com/lhenry15.png" width="40px" alt="lhenry15" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/ismael-elatifi"><img src="https://github.com/ismael-elatifi.png" width="40px" alt="ismael-elatifi" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/mjudell"><img src="https://github.com/mjudell.png" width="40px" alt="mjudell" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/jkterry1"><img src="https://github.com/jkterry1.png" width="40px" alt="jkterry1" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/kaanozdogru"><img src="https://github.com/kaanozdogru.png" width="40px" alt="kaanozdogru" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/junyuGuo"><img src="https://github.com/junyuGuo.png" width="40px" alt="junyuGuo" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<br />
<a href="https://github.com/Xixo99"><img src="https://github.com/Xixo99.png" width="40px" alt="Xixo99" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/rodrigodelazcano"><img src="https://github.com/rodrigodelazcano.png" width="40px" alt="rodrigodelazcano" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/Michael1015198808"><img src="https://github.com/Michael1015198808.png" width="40px" alt="Michael1015198808" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/mia1996"><img src="https://github.com/mia1996.png" width="40px" alt="mia1996" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/kaiks"><img src="https://github.com/kaiks.png" width="40px" alt="kaiks" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/claude9493"><img src="https://github.com/claude9493.png" width="40px" alt="claude9493" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/SonSang"><img src="https://github.com/SonSang.png" width="40px" alt="SonSang" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/rishabhvarshney14"><img src="https://github.com/rishabhvarshney14.png" width="40px" alt="rishabhvarshney14" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/aetheryang"><img src="https://github.com/aetheryang.png" width="40px" alt="aetheryang" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/rxng8"><img src="https://github.com/rxng8.png" width="40px" alt="rxng8" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/nondecidibile"><img src="https://github.com/nondecidibile.png" width="40px" alt="nondecidibile" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/benblack769"><img src="https://github.com/benblack769.png" width="40px" alt="benblack769" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/zhengsx"><img src="https://github.com/zhengsx.png" width="40px" alt="zhengsx" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="https://github.com/andrewnc"><img src="https://github.com/andrewnc.png" width="40px" alt="andrewnc" /></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;

## Cite this work
If you find this repo useful, you may cite:

Zha, Daochen, et al. "RLCard: A Platform for Reinforcement Learning in Card Games." IJCAI. 2020.
```bibtex
@inproceedings{zha2020rlcard,
  title={RLCard: A Platform for Reinforcement Learning in Card Games},
  author={Zha, Daochen and Lai, Kwei-Herng and Huang, Songyi and Cao, Yuanpu and Reddy, Keerthana and Vargas, Juan and Nguyen, Alex and Wei, Ruzhe and Guo, Junyu and Hu, Xia},
  booktitle={IJCAI},
  year={2020}
}
```

## Installation
Make sure that you have **Python 3.6+** and **pip** installed. We recommend installing the stable version of `rlcard` with `pip`:

```
pip3 install rlcard
```
The default installation will only include the card environments. To use PyTorch implementation of the training algorithms, run
```
pip3 install rlcard[torch]
```
If you are in China and the above command is too slow, you can use the mirror provided by Tsinghua University:
```
pip3 install rlcard -i https://pypi.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/simple
```
Alternatively, you can clone the latest version with (if you are in China and Github is slow, you can use the mirror in [Gitee](https://gitee.com/daochenzha/rlcard)):
```
git clone https://github.com/datamllab/rlcard.git
```
or only clone one branch to make it faster:
```
git clone -b master --single-branch --depth=1 https://github.com/datamllab/rlcard.git
```
Then install with
```
cd rlcard
pip3 install -e .
pip3 install -e .[torch]
```

We also provide [**conda** installation method](https://anaconda.org/toubun/rlcard):

```
conda install -c toubun rlcard
```

Conda installation only provides the card environments, you need to manually install Pytorch on your demands.

## Examples
A **short example** is as below.

```python
import rlcard
from rlcard.agents import RandomAgent

env = rlcard.make('blackjack')
env.set_agents([RandomAgent(num_actions=env.num_actions)])

print(env.num_actions) # 2
print(env.num_players) # 1
print(env.state_shape) # [[2]]
print(env.action_shape) # [None]

trajectories, payoffs = env.run()
```

RLCard can be flexibly connected to various algorithms. See the following examples:

*   [Playing with random agents](docs/toy-examples.md#playing-with-random-agents)
*   [Deep-Q learning on Blackjack](docs/toy-examples.md#deep-q-learning-on-blackjack)
*   [Training CFR (chance sampling) on Leduc Hold'em](docs/toy-examples.md#training-cfr-on-leduc-holdem)
*   [Having fun with pretrained Leduc model](docs/toy-examples.md#having-fun-with-pretrained-leduc-model)
*   [Training DMC on Dou Dizhu](docs/toy-examples.md#training-dmc-on-dou-dizhu)
*   [Evaluating Agents](docs/toy-examples.md#evaluating-agents)
*   [Training Agents on PettingZoo](examples/pettingzoo)

## Demo
Run `examples/human/leduc_holdem_human.py` to play with the pre-trained Leduc Hold'em model. Leduc Hold'em is a simplified version of Texas Hold'em. Rules can be found [here](docs/games.md#leduc-holdem).

```
>> Leduc Hold'em pre-trained model

>> Start a new game!
>> Agent 1 chooses raise

=============== Community Card ===============
┌─────────┐
│░░░░░░░░░│
│░░░░░░░░░│
│░░░░░░░░░│
│░░░░░░░░░│
│░░░░░░░░░│
│░░░░░░░░░│
│░░░░░░░░░│
└─────────┘
===============   Your Hand    ===============
┌─────────┐
│J        │
│         │
│         │
│    ♥    │
│         │
│         │
│        J│
└─────────┘
===============     Chips      ===============
Yours:   +
Agent 1: +++
=========== Actions You Can Choose ===========
0: call, 1: raise, 2: fold

>> You choose action (integer):
```
We also provide a GUI for easy debugging. Please check [here](https://github.com/datamllab/rlcard-showdown/). Some demos:

![doudizhu-replay](https://github.com/datamllab/rlcard-showdown/blob/master/docs/imgs/doudizhu-replay.png?raw=true)
![leduc-replay](https://github.com/datamllab/rlcard-showdown/blob/master/docs/imgs/leduc-replay.png?raw=true)

## Available Environments
We provide a complexity estimation for the games on several aspects. **InfoSet Number:** the number of information sets; **InfoSet Size:** the average number of states in a single information set; **Action Size:** the size of the action space. **Name:** the name that should be passed to `rlcard.make` to create the game environment. We also provide the link to the documentation and the random example.

| Game                                                                                                                                                                                           | InfoSet Number  | InfoSet Size      | Action Size | Name            | Usage                                                                                       |
| :--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: | :-------------: | :---------------: | :---------: | :-------------: | :-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: |
| Blackjack ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackjack), [baike](https://baike.baidu.com/item/21%E7%82%B9/5481683?fr=aladdin))                                                              | 10^3            | 10^1              | 10^0        | blackjack       | [doc](docs/games.md#blackjack), [example](examples/run_random.py)                           |
| Leduc Hold’em ([paper](http://poker.cs.ualberta.ca/publications/UAI05.pdf))                                                                                                                    | 10^2            | 10^2              | 10^0        | leduc-holdem    | [doc](docs/games.md#leduc-holdem), [example](examples/run_random.py)                        |
| Limit Texas Hold'em ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_hold_%27em), [baike](https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BE%B7%E5%85%8B%E8%90%A8%E6%96%AF%E6%89%91%E5%85%8B/83440?fr=aladdin))    | 10^14           | 10^3              | 10^0        | limit-holdem    | [doc](docs/games.md#limit-texas-holdem), [example](examples/run_random.py)                  |
| Dou Dizhu ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dou_dizhu), [baike](https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%96%97%E5%9C%B0%E4%B8%BB/177997?fr=aladdin))                                               | 10^53 ~ 10^83   | 10^23             | 10^4        | doudizhu        | [doc](docs/games.md#dou-dizhu), [example](examples/run_random.py)                           |
| Mahjong ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_Mahjong_scoring_rules), [baike](https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%BA%BB%E5%B0%86/215))                                                | 10^121          | 10^48             | 10^2        | mahjong         | [doc](docs/games.md#mahjong), [example](examples/run_random.py)                             | 
| No-limit Texas Hold'em ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_hold_%27em), [baike](https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BE%B7%E5%85%8B%E8%90%A8%E6%96%AF%E6%89%91%E5%85%8B/83440?fr=aladdin)) | 10^162          | 10^3              | 10^4        | no-limit-holdem | [doc](docs/games.md#no-limit-texas-holdem), [example](examples/run_random.py)               |
| UNO ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uno_\(card_game\)), [baike](https://baike.baidu.com/item/UNO%E7%89%8C/2249587))                                                                      |  10^163         | 10^10             | 10^1        | uno             | [doc](docs/games.md#uno), [example](examples/run_random.py)                                 |
| Gin Rummy ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin_rummy), [baike](https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%87%91%E6%8B%89%E7%B1%B3/3471710))                                                         | 10^52           | -                 | -           | gin-rummy       | [doc](docs/games.md#gin-rummy), [example](examples/run_random.py)                           |
| Bridge ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge), [baike](https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%A1%A5%E7%89%8C/332030))                                                                         |                 | -                 | -           | bridge          | [doc](docs/games.md#bridge), [example](examples/run_random.py)                              |

## Supported Algorithms
| Algorithm | example | reference |
| :--------------------------------------: | :-----------------------------------------: | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: |
| Deep Monte-Carlo (DMC)                   | [examples/run\_dmc.py](examples/run_dmc.py) | [[paper]](https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.06135)                                                              |
| Deep Q-Learning (DQN)                    | [examples/run\_rl.py](examples/run_rl.py)   | [[paper]](https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.5602)                                                               |
| Neural Fictitious Self-Play (NFSP)       | [examples/run\_rl.py](examples/run_rl.py)   | [[paper]](https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.01121)                                                              |
| Counterfactual Regret Minimization (CFR) | [examples/run\_cfr.py](examples/run_cfr.py) | [[paper]](http://papers.nips.cc/paper/3306-regret-minimization-in-games-with-incomplete-information.pdf) |

## Pre-trained and Rule-based Models
We provide a [model zoo](rlcard/models) to serve as the baselines.

| Model                                    | Explanation                                              |
| :--------------------------------------: | :------------------------------------------------------: |
| leduc-holdem-cfr                         | Pre-trained CFR (chance sampling) model on Leduc Hold'em |
| leduc-holdem-rule-v1                     | Rule-based model for Leduc Hold'em, v1                   |
| leduc-holdem-rule-v2                     | Rule-based model for Leduc Hold'em, v2                   |
| uno-rule-v1                              | Rule-based model for UNO, v1                             |
| limit-holdem-rule-v1                     | Rule-based model for Limit Texas Hold'em, v1             |
| doudizhu-rule-v1                         | Rule-based model for Dou Dizhu, v1                       |
| gin-rummy-novice-rule                    | Gin Rummy novice rule model                              |

## API Cheat Sheet
### How to create an environment
You can use the the following interface to make an environment. You may optionally specify some configurations with a dictionary.
*   **env = rlcard.make(env_id, config={})**: Make an environment. `env_id` is a string of a environment; `config` is a dictionary that specifies some environment configurations, which are as follows.
	*   `seed`: Default `None`. Set a environment local random seed for reproducing the results.
	*   `allow_step_back`: Default `False`. `True` if allowing `step_back` function to traverse backward in the tree.
	*   Game specific configurations: These fields start with `game_`. Currently, we only support `game_num_players` in Blackjack, .

Once the environemnt is made, we can access some information of the game.
*   **env.num_actions**: The number of actions.
*   **env.num_players**: The number of players.
*   **env.state_shape**: The shape of the state space of the observations.
*   **env.action_shape**: The shape of the action features (Dou Dizhu's action can encoded as features)

### What is state in RLCard
State is a Python dictionary. It consists of observation `state['obs']`, legal actions `state['legal_actions']`, raw observation `state['raw_obs']` and raw legal actions `state['raw_legal_actions']`.

### Basic interfaces
The following interfaces provide a basic usage. It is easy to use but it has assumtions on the agent. The agent must follow [agent template](docs/developping-algorithms.md). 
*   **env.set_agents(agents)**: `agents` is a list of `Agent` object. The length of the list should be equal to the number of the players in the game.
*   **env.run(is_training=False)**: Run a complete game and return trajectories and payoffs. The function can be used after the `set_agents` is called. If `is_training` is `True`, it will use `step` function in the agent to play the game. If `is_training` is `False`, `eval_step` will be called instead.

### Advanced interfaces
For advanced usage, the following interfaces allow flexible operations on the game tree. These interfaces do not make any assumtions on the agent.
*   **env.reset()**: Initialize a game. Return the state and the first player ID.
*   **env.step(action, raw_action=False)**: Take one step in the environment. `action` can be raw action or integer; `raw_action` should be `True` if the action is raw action (string).
*   **env.step_back()**: Available only when `allow_step_back` is `True`. Take one step backward. This can be used for algorithms that operate on the game tree, such as CFR (chance sampling).
*   **env.is_over()**: Return `True` if the current game is over. Otherewise, return `False`.
*   **env.get_player_id()**: Return the Player ID of the current player.
*   **env.get_state(player_id)**: Return the state that corresponds to `player_id`.
*   **env.get_payoffs()**: In the end of the game, return a list of payoffs for all the players.
*   **env.get_perfect_information()**: (Currently only support some of the games) Obtain the perfect information at the current state.

## Library Structure
The purposes of the main modules are listed as below:

*   [/examples](examples): Examples of using RLCard.
*   [/docs](docs): Documentation of RLCard.
*   [/tests](tests): Testing scripts for RLCard.
*   [/rlcard/agents](rlcard/agents): Reinforcement learning algorithms and human agents.
*   [/rlcard/envs](rlcard/envs): Environment wrappers (state representation, action encoding etc.)
*   [/rlcard/games](rlcard/games): Various game engines.
*   [/rlcard/models](rlcard/models): Model zoo including pre-trained models and rule models.

## More Documents
For more documentation, please refer to the [Documents](docs/README.md) for general introductions. API documents are available at our [website](http://www.rlcard.org).

## Contributing
Contribution to this project is greatly appreciated! Please create an issue for feedbacks/bugs. If you want to contribute codes, please refer to [Contributing Guide](./CONTRIBUTING.md). If you have any questions, please contact [Daochen Zha](https://github.com/daochenzha) with [daochen.zha@rice.edu](mailto:daochen.zha@rice.edu).

## Acknowledgements
We would like to thank JJ World Network Technology Co.,LTD for the generous support and all the contributions from the community contributors.