Available game parameters

There are many possible configuration. We are implementing Standard and Custom options so that you can easily combine flags to create games according with your skill/needs.

Standard variations

• number of decks, default is 1
• standOnSoft17, turn On/Off the "Soft 17" rule, default true
• double, ability to double after deal, default any
  • none not allowed
  • any any allowed
  • 9or10
  • 9or10or11
  • 9thru15
• split, On/Off the possibility to split after deal, default true
• doubleAfterSplit, On/Off the possibility to double after split (split and double must be "on"), default true
• surrender, on/off the ability to surrender after deal, default true
• insurance, on/off the ability of ensuring a hand, default true

Custom variations

There are many variations of this game and I really do not know them all, but if you ask me I will add them. Here a list of direct (and maybe exotic) requests:

• showdownAfterAceSplit, after the deal and if player receives 2 aces and a split is called, a card is dealt on each side and showdown phase is initialized (the game ends) default true but it depends on split.

Install

If you are using npm, to get the last version:

• yarn add engine-blackjack
• npm install engine-blackjack

I'm currently publishing the master branch into NPM until I get the first tag. Ideally, only tagged commits will be uploaded as NPM after that moment.

NOTE: Master branch is under development. Be sure to "ONLY" use tagged version for your production.

Quick Start

Once obtained the library just require Game and actions.

const blackjack = require('engine-blackjack')
const actions = blackjack.actions
const Game = blackjack.Game

At this point you can initialize a new game by calling the Game constructor.

Creating a new game

const game = new Game()

In this cases, no state is passed to the constructor:

1. the default state is loaded into game
2. game is ready to dispatch actions to alter the state

Getting current state

At any moment we can require the current state of the game by calling the getState().

console.dir(game.getState())

The content of the state and its schema depends on the stage of the game. In this case we initialized the game without any precedent state, so we will receive something like this:

{
  hits: 0,
  stage: 'ready',
  deck: [
    { text: '9', suite: 'clubs', value: 9 },
    { text: '7', suite: 'clubs', value: 7 },
    ...
    ...
  ],
  handInfo: { left: {}, right: {} },
  history: []
}

For the moment the only thing we should note is that the field stage tells us "game is ready".

Dispatching actions

The only way to mutate the state of the game is to dispatch actions. Some actions are required by the "user", some other actions are dispatched by the engine to "complete" the game.

NOTE: In a real game, players and dealer are allowed to "do actions". The engine will "impersonate the dealer" at some point, depending on the last action and the state.

// stage is "ready"
console.log(game.getState().stage)

// call an action to mutate the state
game.dispatch(actions.deal())

// stage has changed
console.log(game.getState().stage)

Project Structure

Guidelines that I follow

Inspired by projects done by people I consider smart, like Flux or Redux, and motivated by the desire to introduce the functional paradigm in my work day:

1. platform agnostic (if you can run Node, you are ok. Node can run everywhere)
2. zero-dependencies (only dev-dependencies)
3. TDD, break every single game action to be testable
4. Implement everything that makes sense (and described in WikipediA)

Everything you need to hack is of course inside /src or /test and npm test does what you expect (plus a lot of console.log for the moment)

Actions

see the /src/actions.js

Engine exposes actions, once invoked, the state of the game is changed. The following list represent the actions that can be dispatched by from the public API.

• restore
• deal
• insurance
• double
• split
• hit
• stand

And, those are actions that are internally called in determinate stages by the engine itself.

• showdown
• dealerHit
• invalid

Stages

See the /src/game.js

The stage represent a moment in the game. The stage is directly related with the action allowed in that particular moment.

Current available stages are:

• ready
• player-turn-left
• player-turn-right (optional)
• showdown
• dealer-turn
• done

Logic

The game logic is implemented into /src/engine.js. There some more methods, strictly related to the tests and for the moment are not tested (who test the test is not yet solved). There is a specific design limitation currently in the code. Currently it support only 2 position, user can "split" but it is not possible at the moment to create more complex variants of the game.

NOTE: If you are interested in the random components, check out the shuffle() function.

Test

Run tests by calling yarn test or npm test

You can also write specific test cases using this syntax. For more details have a look at game.spec.js

{
  cards: '♠10 ♦1 ♥5 ♣6 ♠11 ♦10',
  actions: ['restore', 'deal', 'split', 'standR'],
  stage: 'done',
  finalWin: 0
}

Jest will care about the following tasks:

• create a new game
• initialize it by injecting ♠10 ♦1 ♥5 ♣6 ♠11 ♦10 at the and of the deck
• run the desired restore, deal, split and finally standR (stand on right)
• return the current state
• compare if stage is 'done' at the end

If you specify the finalWin the test will compare the final winning.

Stats

Probabilities are not my favourite things... but apparently they are important for someone. Got some information here:

• In blackjack, what is the probability of a blackjack?
• Dealer's Bust-Out Rate

Random

Please consider that for stress test this is the used random fn. It overrides the getRandom provided by 52-deck

const deck = require('52-deck')
deck.getRandom = (min, max) => {
  let number
  const range = max - min + 1
  do
  {
    const buffer = crypto.randomBytes(4)
    number = buffer.readUInt8(0)
  }
  while (number >= Number.MAX_VALUE - (Number.MAX_VALUE % range))
  number %= range
  return number + min
}

The original function (provided by 52-deck) is const getRandom = (v: number) => Math.floor(Math.random() * v). I just wanted to be fancy importing and implementing something approved by a well known game laboratory (No more details here).

Side Bets

Side bets are part of the "multi-game strategy". They are returned to the client as "available bets" and they can be sets in the deal() payload. Engine will calculate the side bet result during the deal()

License

engine-blackjack Copyright (C) 2016 Marco Casula

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

Credits

Thanks @webpty for logos