Blackjack for Dummies CSE 212 Final Project James Fitzgerald and Eleazar Fernando

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1 Blackjack for Dummies CSE 212 Final Project James Fitzgerald and Eleazar Fernando 1 Abstract Our goal was to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 to create the card game Blackjack. Primary objectives for implementing the game included inheritance and a graphical user interface. This was the first time we had to actually develop an entire GUI. We used Windows Forms Editor which is relatively new, so documentation and finding other people with experience in using it was difficult. A card counting technique, as described in Bringing Down the House, was an idea introduced in the middle of development to make gameplay more robust. 2 Keywords 1. Artificial Intelligence: dealer 2. BlackJack: card game; also a hand of Classes: form outlining structure 4. GUI: Graphical User Interface 5. Inheritance: ability to reuse classes by absorbing their attributes and behaviors 6. Polymorphism: object-oriented technique that enables writing programs that handle a wide variety of classes related by inheritance 7. Hit: player is dealt a card 8. Stay: player receives no more cards 9. Push: tie 10.Double down: player receives only one more card and bet doubles 11. Bust: players hand is over Shoe: A device that can hold a certain number of decks which allows the dealer to slide out the cards one at a time. 13. Count: Indicator of low to high cards left in deck Card Charlie: If the player hits up to 5 cards, player automatically wins (including the dealer) 3 Introduction We decided to create a blackjack game with a GUI implementation. Initially we had the intention of creating a Texas hold em poker game. However due to time constraints, we decided against this because of its larger complexity. We chose blackjack because it is slightly less complex in terms of gameplay, but still allows us to implement a nice GUI and is still a card-based game. The choice of creating a card game program was for personal reasons. We simply like card games and thought it would be great to play a game we actually made. 4 Body 4.1 Gameplay Standard Blackjack rules apply. This game is implemented with a 6 deck shoe. Face cards are worth 10 and aces are either 1 or 11. Other cards are worth face value. The player must try to get the sum of their as close to 21 as possible, without going over. The player must place a bet before the cards are dealt. Both player and dealer are dealt 2 cards initially. If either player has blackjack at this point, they win. If both have blackjack there is a push. If neither is the case, the player can now choose to double down, hit, or stay. The player can only double down after the initial deal. If the player chooses to hit and goes over 21, the player busts. If the player hits up to 5 cards, they get a 5 Card Charlie and win. If the player chooses to stay, the dealer hits until it is at 17 or more. If the dealer hits up to 5 cards, it gets a 5 Card Charlie and wins. If the dealer goes over 21, it busts. If neither player has won or busted at this point, the player with the greater hand wins. Blackjack plays 3 to 2, and 5 Card Charlie pays 2 to 1. 1

2 Fig. 1. A typical blackjack hand 2

3 4.2 Card Counting Theory The card counting algorithm that we used comes from the MIT card counting team, as documented in the book Bringing Down the House. It is based on the fact that when more high cards remain in the deck, the game is in the player s advantage. Therefore, cards 2 to 6 are assigned a value of +1. Cards 7 to 9 are neutral (0) and cards 10 to 11 (10s, face cards and aces) are -1. The true count and recommended bet is calculated by the following equations: true count = (count / decks remaining in shoe) recommended bet = true count * betting unit where betting unit is (about 1 percent of our total bankroll) This puts the player at about a 2 percent advantage over the house. By playing multiple tables at a time and only signaling people in when the deck s true count was high, the MIT blackjack team was able to give themselves a 12 percent edge over the casinos. The next step in our blackjack game could be to allow automatic simulation of the deck to see what percentage the player wins when the count is high (and how much money). 4.3 GUI Design: Card graphics were taken from a Data Structures 2002 Blackjack program. The background was taken from http : // n n/blackjack f r.shtml and edited with Photoshop. Everything is placed on one screen. Things are shown and hidden depending on the stage in the gameplay. Pictures boxes for all the cards are laid out and are revealed when needed. This was one of the reasons we used the 5 Card Charlie rule. The players can never go over 5 cards so the most cards we have to worry about displaying is 10 total. Plus, most casinos actually use this rule anyway. An example of how the buttons work is the following: To begin the game the chip buttons are active so that when the player clicks on any of them it increases the pot size. The Deal button is shown but does nothing if there is no bet. Once a bet is placed deal is active. When Deal is clicked, it disappears, deactivates the chips, and the Hit, Stay, and Double Down buttons appear. After the first player move, Double Down disappears. Cards appear on corresponding hits. Text boxes refresh with appropriate values on appropriate occurrences. When the player wins or loses, the GUI is reset to the starting configuration. 5 Summary We are very pleased with the result of our Blackjack game. The GUI came out very nicely. Everything is easy to use, self explanatory, and fits nicely into one screen. Windows forms is rather powerful once one learns how to use it. The one thing, however, which made us unhappy with Windows forms was that everything was placed in the form1.h file. This made the code very cluttered and long. The card counting technique and the recommended bet adds a nice touch to the program. We were able to add a double down function in the time we had, but more features could be in store for the future. 6 Future With the card classes we have already developed, we might like top implement more functionality into the blackjack game. Such functions might include split and insurance. Creating a multiplayer game with net support would also be an interesting idea. Another thought was to place a delay on the dealing of cards giving the game a realer feel. Again, with the card classes we have already made, we could develop our original idea and create a Texas Hold em Poker game. The AI would have to be much more complicated for this game. Some ideas would include pattern recognizing and odds calculation. 3

4 Fig. 2. Blackjack table in design view 4

5 7 Sources Blackjack table image: http : // n n/blackjack f r.shtml. Card image files: http : // Mezrich, Ben. Bringing Down the House: How Six Students took Vegas for Millions. London: William Heinemann, Deitel, HM and PJ. C++: How to Program 4th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson s Edducation Inc, Biographies 8.1 Eleazar Fernando Eleazar is currently a sophomore, soon to be junior computer engineering major at the University of Notre Dame, although he calls Grant, Florida home. 8.2 James Fitzgerald James is currently a sophomore, soon to be junior computer engineering major at the University of Notre Dame. He currently resides in Siegfried Hall, but calls Portsmouth, Rhode Island home. He has an addiction to card games, so programming a blackjack game was only natural to him. Fig. 3. Fitz on left, Eleazar on right 5