In all seriousness, C21 is a Blackjack Card Counting Calculator with an integrated
GUI made using the Tkinter library. It has 4 integrated card counting methods (that are mentioned in more
detail later in this beautiful read-me), a full-color terminal interface and many more features
for all your online card counting needs, or to just steal borrow some code, don't we all.
- Fast & Compact
- Some Understanding of Blackjack Required
- 🔥 Beat the Casino 🔥
Images (Click Me):
Before you can use this tool effectively, it's important you have a concrete understanding of the following:
- How to play Blackjack
- How the card counting methods that are used in C21 work
- How to use basic strategy charts
Learning how to play Blackjack is probably the simplest of all, you can watch this amazing video by Blackjack Apprenticeship on learning Blackjack quickly and easily. You would also need to memorize different key words that are commonly used when talking about Blackjack, such as running count, true count, deck penetration, and more. All you need to do is memorize how the card counting methods work to learn how to use them. The ones used in C21 are:
You can click the links to learn more about the methods or you can go to the bjstrats.yaml file in the
project, where under the name of the method there is a description tag that has all the info
nice and condensed for reading, though I would still recommend visting the websites linked above.
Finally, basic strategy charts teaches you exactly when to: hit or stand, double down, split pairs or surrender. These are extremely useful to have and I recommend this one, also by Blackjack Apprenticeship.
This section is for if you want to use the EXE version of C21 where you don't need to install Python, just instlal the program file, the settings file and the methods file.
Install the folder as a Zip and Unzip it. Before doing anything, there are two important files:
c21_settings.jsone_bjstrats.yaml
This is a settings file where you tell the program how many decks of cards you're using, this is
essential since everything would break if this file were not here. The default amount of decks is 6; but if you
are playing with more or less decks, all you have to do is open the JSON file, and edit the number next to the
decks_amount value. The maximum amount of decks you can play with is 8, and the minimum is 1.
{"decks_amount":6}This is the methods file that contains all the logic of how to count cards and tells the program what language its in, this should not be deleted under any circumstances (unless you want to test something or whatever you want to do). On default installation the language is in English. If you want to change it to Spanish which is the only supported language as of now, you can delete everything in the file, and replace it with this:
Spanish Version For e_bjstrats.yaml
Pro Tip: Don't change anything in here if you're not sure what it does. Also if you accidentally delete the
e_bjstrats.yamlfile, just make another file with the same name add copy the same content it had before in it to the new file, make sure to make the file in the same folder.
You might get an error from your Windows defender that this is a suspicious file, and this is normal. Every EXE file downloaded from github is flagged as dangerous, but I promise this is not one of those. If you don't trust me, then you can install Python normally, install the normal C21 files and run the code natively where you can see it.
After you downloaded everything and changed the settings as you'd like, you now have an EXE file that can directly run C21, just remember to keep all the files together in the same folder.
C21 requires a Python version 3.10 or above. Once you've installed Python and set it up,
install C21 as a Zip file and run the main file: akr_main.py
Important note: Later on, I will add an EXE file where the calculator can be run directly without the need to install Python.
The only pip installation needed is pyyaml and termcolor, the helper files are all there
and the rest of the modules are already build into Python.
pip install pyyaml
pip install termcolor
IMPORTANT: Before you run the program though, you need to change the method_file variable in
method_parse.py, located at the top of the script after the imports, to the file path of your bjstrats.yaml file.
This is where all the methods are stored, and is essential for C21. If no yaml file is found, the terminal
will throw an error, or not run at all. You also have to change the DECKS constant near the top of
akr_main.py to the number of decks you are playing with, it's set to 6 by default.
When you run the main file, a calculator GUI will pop up on the screen and the terminal will supply you with info about the current methods that are running and the status overall of the program. This window is resizable and I highly recommend you resize it to your liking, just don't make it too small.
There are 4 different parts to this calculator:
- The methods matrix, located top left with four sections
- The information sidebar, located to the right of the methods matrix
- The history bar, located under the methods matrix
- And the card keypad, located under the history bar
This section is divided into four, one quadrant for each method.
TOP ROW: HiLo, Omega II BOTTOM ROW: KO, ACEFC (For the remainder of this readme, Ace Five Count will be shortened to this)
Top row methods are all balanced systems meaning they have true counts, the bottom row ones only have running counts. The color of the boxes will change from red to blue to green depending on the true count and running count. These colors represent the betting recommendations, or in other words how much you should bet on the next round. Recommendations are also shown in text under the RC and TC (Running count, True count).
SPECTRUM: 🟥 Red: Bet the minimum -> 🟦 Blue: Neutral bet -> 🟩 Green: Increase bet
This is the most important section out of all of them as it tells you how to scale your bets accordingly, pay close attention and memorize all the method's interactions with one another.
To the right of the methods matrix is the information sidebar. It tells you your last played card (PC), the decimal amount of decks left (DL) and the number of all the cards left in the deck (AC).
Below the methods matrix is the history bar. It shows you the last 10 cards you have played, with the leftmost index being the most recent, and the rightmost one being the latest. (All Jacks, Queens and Kings are counted as Tens)
Most Recent >---------------> Oldest
History: 5, 6, A, 9, 10, 2, A, 2, 10
Pro Tip: You can change the limit of the cards it shows from 10 to another number by going to the
append_limitfunction and changing thelimitparameter default value to another number. Try to not make it too big as all the cards won't be able to fit in the GUI.
The oh-so-beautiful card keypad allows you to input your cards so you can actually use the calculator (wow!). In a 5x2 configuration, all you need to do is press the button corresponding to the card(s) you want to insert into the calculator. As a reminder, all Jacks; Queens and Kings are counted as Tens, so the button for 10 includes the letters J Q K so you don't wonder where they went or if I forgot to include them.
Nice job, now you know how to use the GUI and what all the sections mean. But you might have noticed when you start up C21 and every time you press a card button, you get some info in the terminal, this is all for debug purposes and to show whats going on. There are 5 different tags you can get along with a message in the terminal:
- Success
- Notice
- Info
- Warning
- Error
Each one has thier own color and are self-explanatory, the only ones to really explain are notice and info. Info is used for when the program returns data sets such as the dictonarys needed for storing the counts and recommendations. Notice on the other hand is used for showing what functions are being called and a rudimentary version of the information sidebar. There is also a rudimentary version of the recommendation system printed out in the terminal. There, the four method names are printed out and tells you to increase or lower your bets.
HILO: - OMEGAII: - KO: - ACEFC:
(Inc = Increase Bet, Neu = Neutral Bet, Neg = Bet Minimum)
When you run the program, the first thing it will tell you is if it's running on Windows or another OS, this is used for activating the color in the terminal so you can see all the beautiful colored tags. It also tells you if the yaml file for the methods has been loaded successfully and the methods it will use.
If you want to reset the calculator and it's values completly you will have to close the program and run it again. I have not implemented a reset button as you can run the risk of losing your progress on accident. Feedback would be appreciated if you would like the inclusion of a reset button.
Online casinos usually have low deck penetration, which just means they put in a special card somewhere in the shoe (all the decks) so they know when to reshuffle. This means you might get very bad cards in the beginning and it's about to get very good, but the dealer reshuffles before you can get to those high value cards. This means while counting online, you have to be very patient or just look for a good table with high penetration.
I hope you found this project somewhat interesting, and that you've learned something from it. C21 took around 2 weeks to complete with delays but turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. I got inspired to make something like this thanks to the 1988 movie "Rainman", great movie, highly recommend watching it.
Now I leave you with this information in this README, and the knowledge that you can now beat any online casino if you use this tool correctly. Best of luck! :)
IMPORTANT: I,
ktehllama, am not responsible at all for any monetary loss on your part or any other legal issues that may arise by using an assisted program to count cards, this is for educational purposes only, use at your own volition and risk.
CC0 1.0 Universal