"Blackjack Lab" by Dan Cogliano, Version 1.0.1 Release Notes May 3, 1990 =========================================================================== B L A C K J A C K L A B I S A S H A R E W A R E P R O G R A M ! "Blackjack Lab" is a freely distributable, copyrighted program for posting on bulletin boards, as long as the original LHARC file and all files within it are included and remain unaltered, and may not be duplicated or utilized for any commercial purposes without the expressed, written consent of the author. No fee can be charged for this program except for implied fees due to downloading and fees based solely on media costs and duplication and shipping. You now have in your possession one of the most powerful blackjack programs available on ANY microcomputer today! This program has taken over 1 and 1/2 years to develop. If you enjoy using this program, you are encouraged to become a registered user. Your support of high quality shareware programs will encourage future enhancements to this product, and encourage other programmers to continue developing more high quality shareware products. As a thank-you gift from the author, you will receive the following bonuses when you become a registered user of "Blackjack Lab": - A printed user's manual (over 30 pages), which includes not only a complete description of the program, but also explains basic strategy and card counting techniques. - A diskette containing the latest version of "Blackjack Lab", complete with the save feature enabled. - Casino rule files for 10 casinos from around the world, including Las Vegas and Atlantic City (not to mention video blackjack!). - Strategy files for Las Vegas and Atlantic City. - Expanded help facility, including on-line user's manual and glossary. - A complete course on how to learn blackjack basic strategy and card counting, using the program's unique experiment facility. - Advance information on future enhancements. - And last, but not least, the author's undying gratitude. To register, send $25 ($30 if outside U.S. or Canada) in U.S. check or money order to: Dan Cogliano P.O. Box 1379 Pasadena, Maryland 21122 U.S.A. =========================================================================== * Program Features * "Blackjack Lab" contains the following features: - The ability to simulate nearly any casino blackjack game in the world (and allow for future rule changes). Registered users receive rules for 10 casinos from around the world. - Allow the use of the most popular playing strategies (basic strategy and card counting) and allow modification to them. - Color-coded strategy tables to enhance the learning of the strategy. - Tracking of play statistics (# of hands played, bankroll limits, casino profitability and others). - Computer monitoring of blackjack play, and informing the player when an incorrect play has been made. - Allowing from 1 to 7 players to play the game, and the computer can be allowed to play any or all of the hands at the table using a user-defined playing strategy, simulating other players at a real casino table. - An interactive on-line help facility. - A special practice mode, which drills the blackjack student with various hand combinations (determined in advance by the user), keeping track of incorrect plays and repeating them until correct. - A self-running demo mode. - The ability to customize the program to meet the needs and preferences of the player. - Digitized sound and card dealing animation. - On-line "experiments" are available to registered users and serve as a complete course for learning to play winning blackjack. - Loading the program from either a floppy disk or a hard disk. - Multitasking gracefully if there is sufficient memory. =========================================================================== * Self Running Demo * To start the self-running demo, type "BJL:Blackjack BJL:Demo" from the CLI, or double-click the "Demo" icon from the workbench. To stop the demo, toggle the "Bet Window" option under the game menu. After the current game is finished, the bet window will appear. Press the "Current Game" gadget to avoid starting another game. Select "Quit" from the project menu to quit the program. Using "Fast Demo" disables the card animation and speeds up dealer play to allow nearly 300,000 hands to be played in a 24 hour period (make sure to put the screen behind workbench to get best performance results). =========================================================================== * Tour of Blackjack Lab * 1. Type "BJL:Blackjack" from the CLI, or double-click the "Blackjack" icon from the workbench. press "OK!" gadget when the "About Blackjack Lab" window appears. The game play table has the name of the casino and the payout odds at the top, and the play gadgets at the bottom. The lower right corner shows the number of cards and the equivalent number of 1/4 decks in the discard pile. This information is useful to the card counter. When the discard pile turns yellow, the deck will be shuffled after completion of the current game. The deck of cards is spread across the table, signifying this table is open and is ready to receive players. 2. Select "New Game/Bets" under game menu. Click at "Player 4", then again at the edit box. Change the name to your own name, and press . Click at the Bet total for Player 4, then the top half of the blue chip. This will increase your bet by $10. Clicking on the lower half of the chip will decrease your bet by the same amount. If you hold down the mouse button when you click on a chip, the chip amount will repeat. Modify your bet to show $25. Press the "New Game" gadget, and the dealer will begin a new game, discarding any current game in progress. The "Current Game" option is used if you wish to modify the parameters and return to the current game. 3. Play a few hands, by pressing the gadgets at the bottom, or by using the function keys on the keyboard (F1 for Stand, F2 for Hit, etc.). In a two person game, one person can use the mouse while the other person uses the keyboard. Now, click on the monitor gadget for player 4 the next time the bet window appears. Now, if you do not pick the best play, the computer will inform you what the best play is for that hand. You can find out what the best play is anytime by choosing "Hint" from the game menu. Choosing "Shuffle" from the game menu will force a shuffle of the cards after the current game, not immediately. You should notice that the discard pile has turned yellow, signifying a shuffle will occur. 4. Select "Preferences" from the project menu. Choose one of the card backs and press the USE gadget. Play a few more hands. 5. We will now change casino rules. From the function menu, select "House Rules". Then from the project menu, choose Open, switch to the Rules drawer, and pick the "Hard Luck Casino" rules, and press the OK! gadget. 6. Switch back to the Game Play Screen using the function menu. The casino name will change to "Hard Luck Casino" and both the surrender and split gadgets will disappear the following game. This is so because the Hard Luck Casino does not have either the surrender or split rule, so there are no gadgets for them. 7. From the Bet window, enter $25 bets for players 3 and 5. Toggle the HUMAN gadgets to ROBOT for these two players and press "New Game". Now, you have two robot players playing on either side of you! The program will pause when it is your turn, and will play the robot hands automatically. This closely simulates a real casino where other players are seated at the same table with you. Toggle the ROBOT gadget for your seat, and the computer will play all three hands. Toggle the Bet Window option in the game menu to disable the bet window, and the computer will play indefinitely until you re-enable the Bet Window option. 8. Press "Current Game" from the Bet Window, and choose Game Stats from the game menu. Blackjack Lab has been watching you! This screen shows the maximum and minimum bets and bankrolls for each player, as well as the number of hands played and the casino profitability. 9. Select the Practice option in the function menu, then select the "New Drill" option from the drill menu. The computer will test you with various play combinations, remembering your mistakes and repeating problem hands. Use the Drill Stats option in the drill menu to check on the problem hands and to see how well you are doing. 10. From the function menu, select "Help". Blackjack Lab contains an easy to use, interactive help facility. To find an index of the topics available, click on the words "Help Index" at the top left of the help window. If a topic is longer than one screen can display, you can "turn the page" by clicking on the page gadgets in the lower right of the help window. Click on "Quit" to quit the help facility. 11. Other features of the program include customizing the casino rules, playing strategy and card counting (card counting is for the advanced player), which you may want to check out. =========================================================================== * General Notes * Rule changes do not take effect in game play until the next round. Rule changes for the deck (for example, number of decks) do not take effect until the next time the deck is shuffled. Shuffling can be forced by the user, however. Although not tested fully, I ran this program for about 5 minutes on a beta version of the Amiga 3000 running workbench 2.0. It worked fine, and boy, was it fast too! Try the Fast Demo on this machine! Refer to the on-line help for more information about the program.