-------------------------------- -- Realworld BlackJack v 1.14 -- -------------------------------- Requirements: ------------- Palm OS version 3.5.0 or later Runs on Color or B&W devices Memory required: approximately 28K Help & Updates: --------------- ** Get updates and make donations at: http://home.triad.rr.com/rlwhitt/palm/#bj ** Official support forum - look here first!!! http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=154 ** As a last resort , email me at: rlwhitt-palm@triad.rr.com Revision History 1.16 - 05/09/07 - Fix for error on startup on Non-Treo devices. Error was introduced on verison 1.15. 1.15 - 04/01/07 - Added a new Drill mode to concentrate practice on certain types of hands. A new Actions menu choice, "Drill Mode", presents four (4) options: "All Cards, No Drill", "Splits Only", Soft Hands Only", and "Hard Hands Only". If any of the modes other than No Drill are selected, a small label appears on the main screen, and the behavior of the players initial hand are as follows: Splits: 1st card comes from deck, next card is just a duplicate of this one, not from the deck. Further split possibilities are by chance only. Soft: Draws 1st card from deck, if ace draw next one normally. If 1st card is NOT ace, put in fake ace (not from deck) for 2nd card. Take all remaining cards, including aces, from deck normally. This mode will also naturally tend to produce lots of bogus Blackjacks! Hard: Skip all drawn aces. If 2nd card is duplicate of 1st, ignore until a different one is reached. The Drill Mode is saved from one session to the next until you change it. Obviously, these drill modes mess with the "randomness" of the cards since some cards are fakes not drawn from the shoe. So it'd be best to ignore your "luck" in winning or losing in this case. It's meant to be a practice mode to see if you can quickly make the right plays in a certain area that may be harder to remember than others (like soft doubling, etc). - Added some simple statistics to track correct basic strategy play. Tallies are kept for total number of decision opportunities (plays) for splits, soft hands, hard hands, and total. Incorrect counts for each instance and type are kept as well, regardless of whether you have the preference selected to warn on bad play. You can view the current stats by selecting "Show Stats" from the Action menu. You can reset these to 0 while viewing the stats, or select "Reset Stats" from the Action menu. Stats are also reset when you select and confirm "New Game" from the menu. Stats are retained when you exit the application and reloaded when you return. - Added Some buttons on New Game/Change Bet screen to increment/decrement bet by $5 or $10. - Fix for Up and Down rocker on 5-Way navs not working on play action & tables screens. - Fixed for spurious negative signs in display of cash amounts like $-999 to $-100 and $-999,999 to $-100,000. 1.14 - 06/28/2006 - Fix for not recognizing Treo 700p as color device - Fix for not allowing negative cash balance to be kept when entering a new bet amount. 1.13 - 11/10/2004 - Corrected for funky background colors on later Palm OS versions (5.0 and later). - Fixed non-transparency of Icons. 1.12 - 06/03/2003 - Corrected for tables sometimes not displaying when the down scroll button is pressed during play action dialog. 1.11 - 10/03/2002 - Corrected massive bonehead error that caused error after hotsync on some devices, notably Handspring and Sony. 1.10 - 09/30/2002 - Added basic color support, small size app icons 1.00 - 08/28/2002 - No bugs reported, and none observed, so I'm calling this one done for now. 0.85 - 06/25/2002 - Corrected overflow error when entering a bet > 999 0.80 - 06/18/2002 - Initially posted Major highlights (see below for details): ----------------------------------------- - Full set of basic Strategy tables available from the main menu or from the Tables button while deciding what play action to take. - The 4 hardware buttons and scroll buttons are used during play to Deal, take play actions, call up & scroll through tables. Thus you can play without taking out your stylus! - Full set of preferences to accommodate most casino rules: - Number of decks: 1, 2, 4, 6, or 8 - Number of burn cards: 1-5 - Shoe penetration, 60-90% - Show player's running score? - Warn on incorrect play (based on basic strategy rules) - Dealer hits soft 17? - Allow resplits? (up to 4 hands) - Allow double after split? - Allow Surrender? (Late) - Doubling types allowed: hard 11 only, hard 10 & 11, hard 9, 10 & 11, or any 2 cards Why Another BlackJack Program? ------------------------------ Like most programs written for spare time enjoyment, this one was started because I felt that others available did not have the right mix of features I wanted. So, I made this one. And since it was done in limited spare time, I'm distributing it free, with no promises to make it better other than what I want to put in. I have neither the time nor the inclination to support a paying user base, as Palm programming is not my job. In addition to having the ability to set enough rules & playing options to make the game a realistic model of what you might find in a "Real" casino, the most important aspect of a program like this for me was to provide reinforcement to learn & commit to memory the "Basic Strategy" rules for playing BlackJack. BlackJack Rules --------------- I'm assuming you know these already and will not bore you with the details. There are tons of web sites to learn these. I'm assuming you are coming to this program beyond being a beginner and are looking for something extra. Basic Strategy? What Dat? -------------------------- Anyone can stumble into a casino and quickly pick up the few simple rules of BlackJack. BlackJack is a great game in that it is one of the few casino games where you have some control over the outcome via the game play decisions you make. It is also one of the few casino games where you can have ALMOST even odds with the house - IF you learn how to play each hand correctly. This is the Basic Strategy. With extensive computer simulations and a bunch of statistics number crunching, it has been conclusively shown that there is a strict set of rules for when you should stand, hit, split or double a hand based on your card total and the dealer's "up" card. Unless you enjoy loosing money at a rapid pace, you owe it to yourself to learn these rather simple rules. The Basic Strategy tables are built into this program for you to view and study, and at your option you can have the program alert you when you make a decision against the strategy rules. The strategy tables included in this program are the standard 4 deck tables that you can find in just about any book or web site that covers such things. They might appear in a different layout but the information is the same. Purists might object to using just the one set of 4-deck tables for everything. Indeed, if you want to be picky about it, there ARE tables specifically for 1,2,4 etc deck games and they have slight differences. Many BlackJack experts agree that the differences are too slight to be worth the trouble of learning 5 sets of tables and then getting hopelessly confused when playing. Learn the 4-deck tables and use it for everything! Some Particulars about how this BlackJack game plays ---------------------------------------------------- Other than what you can set in Preferences, some assumptions I made in this program are pretty standard fare, but nonetheless, here they are: - Split Aces only get ONE additional card. - Dealer always "peeks" when 10 or Ace is showing. Hand is not played out if dealer has BlackJack. - Split hands resulting in a "Natural" are paid as 21 (even money), not as a BlackJack (3 to 2). Additionally, a couple of sort-of "philosophical" features: - If you draw to a 21, no further prompting for action occurs. Why would anyone be crazy enough to ever hit a 21? (g) - No Insurance is ever offered. This program is about learning basic strategy, and as such NO Insurance is ever offered because in the Real World you should NEVER take the insurance bet, so why bother? Before you purists deluge me with email, yes I know that technically there are shoe conditions whereby it can become favorable to take insurance, but you have to be counting cards to know when this occurs and that is well beyond the scope of this program. Nuts and Bolts - Program Features --------------------------------- After you first install the program, you will be prompted to enter Cash and Bet amounts to play with. You can change these at any time from a button on the main screen, or you can select New Game from the menu, which does the same thing except it starts the shoe over again with a new shuffle and clears the table. The program always saves the condition of your money and the shoe in progress when you switch away and go to another program. One issue outstanding as of this time is that if you are right in the middle of a hand when you switch away, you will loose that hand and the money you had bet. I may or may not complete a restore in-progress-hand feature in the future. Once you've got a game started you can tap the Deal button to start a hand, or you can press the Down Scroll Button. This will deal the initial dealers cards and your first two. Then the "What Action" window appears and you must make decisions. You will notice that the buttons on the screen are laid out in the same pattern as the 4 hardware program buttons and the scroll buttons on the Palm. You can press the hardware buttons corresponding to on-screen buttons so that you can play one-handed, without the stylus. Note that according to the state of your hand and/or Preferences in effect, you probably will not see all the buttons at any one time. All of the choices available, in the order they appear, are: (Split) - only shows if both initial cards are the same, and you don't already have the maximum allowed split hands active. Tapping this makes a new hand from the second card with the same bet amount and you start to see "Hand x of y" on the screen to let you know which hand you are playing. You can use the 1st hardware application button to select this option. (Hit) - Take a card. You can use the 2nd hardware application button to select this option. (Surrender) - If the casino allows this, it can be advantageous to just "give up" after your first 2 cards are dealt if they are really crappy (hard 15 or 16) and the dealer is showing a high (9, 10, A) up card. This button only appears if it's enabled in Preferences (it's off by default since it's so rare). If you elect to surrender, the dealer takes 50% of your bet and you do not complete the hand. You can use the Up Scroll button to select this option. (Table) - Call up the strategy table that best applies to the current hand. You can use the Down Scroll button to select this option. Sometimes the right one to show can be a wild guess, and you may need to switch to another table. You can use the Down Scroll button to page through them (or use the menu on the screen to select a specific one). Use the OK button or the Up Scroll button to dismiss the tables and return to the Action screen. (Stand) - Take no more cards and end the play. You can use the 3rd hardware application button to select this option. (Double) - Doubles your bet and draws ONE additional card only. You can use the 4th hardware application button to select this option. You will continue to be prompted for action as long as you don't bust or take an action to stop the play for the hand. If you have the option to Warn on Incorrect Play enabled in Preferences and you make an incorrect decision, you will be prompted to either (Do it Anyway) or (Let Me ReTry). These buttons can also be selected with the hardware application buttons. Either of the left 2 buttons will select the first option, either of the right 2 buttons will select the second. Once you are finished acting on a hand, the dealer will draw as long as needed to complete his hand, results will be shown, and bets will be paid off as appropriate. If you had split hands, each will be evaluated and paid (or not) in turn, with a dialog box appearing between each hand while you see the results. Tap OK or the Down Scroll button to dismiss this box. Preferences ----------- The Preferences screen has a number of options that control some of the rules of game play so that you can customize the program to match most casino environments. With the exception of "Number of Decks" & "Burn Cards", these take effect immediately. These two exceptions take effect at the next Shuffle. Note that starting a new game will shuffle immediately. - Number of Decks (1,2,4,6,8) This is the number of 52 card decks in the "shoe". 4 is a pretty common number of decks. - Burn Cards (1-5) Once the dealer shuffles, they will usually remove the first card from the shoe and put it into the discard bin. This is called a "burn card". Sometimes they burn more than one. - Shoe Penetration (60-90%) This is how "deep" into the shoe the dealer will go. Typically runs around 70%. As the cards are dealt the percentage of cards used displays next to the title bar on the main screen. Once the target penetration is reached at the end of a hand, a shuffle will occur at the next Deal. - Show Player's Score If checked, the player's running total will be shown in the middle status bar area while play progresses. You might want to turn this off to really get down to practicing for the real casino, since they don't show your total there on the table! (g). If a "soft" hand is being played the total will be shown as /. - Warn On Incorrect Play If checked, you will get a pop-up warning box if you make the wrong play decision based on accepted Basic Strategy Rules. - Dealer Hits Soft 17 In most casinos, dealers must stand on all 17's. Some however will allow the dealer to hit a soft 17, which is a very bad rule for the player! - Allow Resplits Some casinos only allow you to split a hand once (into 2 hands), but most allow resplits (up to 4 hands) - Allow Double After Split Check if you want to be able to double down on a split hand. If allowed, be warned that this changes the strategy table a little bit for which hands to split (both tables are provided). - Allow Surrender (Later) Check if you want to allow surrender of any initial 2 card hand. There are only a few instances where it's recommended to do this, but if it's allowed (and it's not common) it's quite advantageous to do so. The hard hitting/standing table will be modified if this is checked. There are actually two kinds of surrender Early & Late. Early is VERY rare, and allows you to surrender your hand BEFORE the dealer peeks under a 10 or Ace. Late lets the dealer look and beat you first with a BlackJack if he has it. If you surrender a hand you lose 50% of your bet, as opposed to probably losing 100% for the really crummy hands where this applies. - Doubling Type Allowed Some casinos allow doubling on any two cards (a good thing) and some limit it to one or more hard totals.