Okay, so folks kept asking about this little thing I worked on, this “random bj” idea. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking, just me messing around one weekend. Let me walk you through how that went down.
Getting Started
So, I had this itch to code up something simple, something with a bit of chance involved. Blackjack, or ‘bj’ as we sometimes call it, popped into my head. The ‘random’ part was key – I wasn’t trying to build a super-smart AI player or anything, just simulate the basic randomness of the card draw and maybe some simple player choices.
First thing, I fired up my code editor. Python felt like the right tool for this. It’s quick for whipping up scripts, and its ‘random’ library is pretty straightforward to use. Didn’t need a fancy setup, just a plain text file to start writing.
Building the Core
Okay, the plan was simple:
- Represent the cards. I just made a list. Suits didn’t matter much for basic scoring, so I focused on ranks: 2 through 10, Jack, Queen, King (all worth 10), and Ace (worth 1 or 11).
- Create a deck. Basically, took four of each rank and put them into one big list. A standard 52-card deck.
- Shuffle it. This was the main ‘random’ part. Used Python’s `*()` on my deck list. Gotta mix ’em up good.
- Deal the cards. Just popped cards off the top of the shuffled deck list. Two for the player, two for the dealer (usually one face down, but for simple logic, I just dealt them).
The Logic Bit
Calculating the hand value was the next step. This got a tiny bit fiddly because of the Ace. My logic was: count the Ace as 11 initially. If the total goes over 21, check if there’s an Ace counted as 11, and if so, change its value to 1. Repeat if needed for multiple Aces. Seemed to work okay after a bit of testing.
Then came the player’s turn. For this “random bj” thing, I didn’t build user input initially. I just set a super simple random rule: maybe the player randomly decides to ‘hit’ or ‘stand’ based on a coin flip (well, `*([‘hit’, ‘stand’])`), or maybe a slightly less dumb rule like ‘hit if score is under 16’. Just wanted to see the game play out automatically.
Dealer’s turn was easier. Standard rules: dealer hits until their score is 17 or more. Coded that up pretty quick.
Wrapping Up and Running It
Finally, compared the scores. Player busts? Dealer wins. Dealer busts? Player wins. Neither busts? Higher score wins. Push if it’s a tie. Printed the results to the console: player hand, dealer hand, scores, and who won.
I ran it a bunch of times in a loop. It was kind of neat watching the random hands play out. Sometimes the player got lucky with random hits, sometimes busted immediately. The dealer’s fixed strategy seemed more consistent, obviously.
What I found? Well, nothing earth-shattering. The randomness of the shuffle dominated everything, as you’d expect. The simple random player strategy was pretty terrible, leading to lots of busts. It really just showed how the basic rules of Blackjack work out over many random deals.
It wasn’t a big project, just a way to kill an afternoon and flex the coding muscles a bit. Kept it simple, focused on the ‘random’ shuffle and deal, and got a basic simulation running. That was the whole “random bj” practice session, really. Just tinkering.
