🃏 Basic Blackjack

A simple blackjack app written in (mostly) native JavaScript. Uses some jQuery for cleaner syntax. No additional libraries or anything fancy

💻 Desktop | 📱 Mobile

Features

• Play blackjack against a computer-controlled dealer
  • Dealer stands on all 17's
  • Blackjack pays 3:2 odds (150%)
• Place bets: $25, $50, $100, $200
• Double down if you're feeling lucky
• Uses six 52-card decks
  • All dealt cards are tracked to prevent duplicates
  • Deck is shuffled before all 312 cards have been used
• True count is displayed on the bottom for card counting
  • Running count is displayed when you hover over the true count
  • Click the true count if you'd like to hide it

Keyboard Map (desktop)

	Description		Bet Amount
S	Stand: stop drawing cards and let the dealer play	1	$25
H	Hit: draw 1 more card	2	$50
D	Double down: double bet, draw 1 card, and stand	3	$100
N	New hand: deal a new hand	4	$200

💻 Desktop

📱 Mobile

Key:

• [TEST] = Added, needs more testing
• [WIP] = Work in progress
• Strikethrough = Fixed or Cancelled

BUGS

• Occasionally freezes when shuffling deck
• Tie at 21 doesn't evaluate until you stand
• Some sounds are muted in specific browsers

Each browser handles JavaScript sound differently. Some are stricter than others or only play sounds tied to user input

• Firefox on Windows plays all SFX (with audio site permission)

• Chromium-based browsers play all SFX except "card_shuffle.mp3" on page load

• Firefox on Android plays all SFX except "card_flip.mp3" on hit()

• Mobile rendering is inconsistent (but playable)

FIXES

• Occasionally froze when looking for a new card
  • Cause: crashed on shuffleDeck() if nTotalCards > 311
  • Fix: created offset to limit range of the check

// nTotalCards: total cards used by both players (per deck)
// nCardsInPlay: number of cards on the table (per hand)
// deckSize: size of all decks combined (312)
// decksLeft: number of remaining decks (1:6)
// fullDeck: array containing all six decks (0:311)

nCardOffset = (deckSize - nCardsInPlay) - 4;
if(nTotalCards > nCardOffset) {
  nTotalCards = 0;
  decksLeft = 6;
  shuffleDeck(fullDeck);
}

• [TEST] Ties did not evaluate until stand() was called
• Cause: condition was set before checkFinalScore() was called
• Workaround: added tie check on checkForWinners()

This is a lazy workaround until I completely remake the winner checks and merge checkFinalScore() with checkForWinners()

TODO

General

• [WIP] Get rid of extraneous code and optimize
  • Player strings and text: number(), toLocale(), slice()
  • Repeated strings/operations
  • Hideous if/else blocks
• [WIP] Clean up code with jQuery
• [TEST] Make mobile version
• Add a split feature
  • This will require a 2nd game board for each player
    • Make the cards smaller, change scaling, or re-orient the game board

Card Deck Generation

• Generate 2 to 6 decks
• Combine decks into a single pool of 312
• Track number of aces to subtract 10 if over 21

Winner Checks

• Combine and clean up checks
  • checkForWins()
  • checkFinalScore()
  • Use priority order to optimize checks

Score Calculation

• [WIP] Optimize getCardValue()
• Calcuate ace values with a single function
• [TEST] Check win condition for rare double bust
• [TEST] Properly handle rare double blackjack
• [WIP] Handle ties better
• Handle Blackjack vs regular 21 (Blackjack wins over 21)

Dealer

• Change dealer strategy
  • Draw to 16
  • Stand on 17
  • Basic strategy: when does a dealer hit on 16?

This doesn't seem significantly different than simply drawing to 17

Settings / Save

• Expand the settings menu (similar to help popup)
• Save settings: sound, true count visibility, bet amount (use local storage)
• Save game progress: cards, scores, money, true count, running count, flags

User Interface

• Update UI to properly render on a wider variety of devices
  • Refresh my knowledge of CSS: viewport, vh, absolute/relative, etc.
  • This could make the mobile port redundant if done properly
• [TEST] Display true count (card counting)
  • True count = (running count / decks remaining)
• [WIP] Use images for all buttons
• Add sound effects
  • Add button to disable sound effects
• Add help menu with instructions and rules
• Make bet buttons look like casino chips
• Lower image sizes to improve loading time
• Add bet amount buttons
  • Add buttons to increase/decrease bet by X dollars
• Add double down button
  • Disable button with > 2 cards (standard casino rule)
• Add a help menu (simple popup with hide/close buttons)

POSSIBLE BUG

NOTE: Blackjack typically used 2 to 8 decks shuffled together

• (Rare) Duplicate cards are dealt when deck is shuffled (duplicates don't carry over)
  • Possible fix: force a shuffle after current hand if < X cards remain
  • Decrease nCardOffset by more than 4

📆 Legacy Version

The oldest working copy of this app: 💻 Desktop

Version	Date
Legacy	5-15-23
Current	11-8-23