WEBVTT 00:00.140 --> 00:00.590 All right. 00:00.590 --> 00:05.330 Let's talk about the mechanics and the program requirements for the blackjack game that you'll create. 00:05.330 --> 00:10.310 For those of you who are not familiar with the game of blackjack, also known as 21. 00:10.340 --> 00:13.580 I'm just going to spend a few minutes to go through the rules with you. 00:13.760 --> 00:21.290 Blackjack is a game that's played using cards, and the goal of the game is to add up your cards to 00:21.320 --> 00:25.310 the largest number without going over 21. 00:26.180 --> 00:34.010 If the cards in your hand add up to more than 21, then it's called a bust, and it means that you lose 00:34.010 --> 00:35.180 immediately. 00:35.300 --> 00:41.780 And it doesn't matter how much you've gone over 21, as long as it's over 21, then you lose. 00:42.230 --> 00:49.850 Now, the way that the cards are counted is that all the cards from 2 to 10 count as their face value. 00:49.850 --> 00:58.850 So a six is a six, a nine is a nine, etc. but the Jack, Queen and king each count as ten, and the 00:58.850 --> 01:01.040 other special card is the ace. 01:01.070 --> 01:08.220 Now the ace can either count as a one towards your total, or it can count as an 11. 01:08.250 --> 01:14.970 And depending on whether if you've gone over 21 or whether if you're under 21, you can decide which 01:14.970 --> 01:17.580 value you want your ace to represent. 01:18.090 --> 01:19.710 Let's play a sample game. 01:19.740 --> 01:27.990 Let's say that the dealer over here got a ten to begin with, and you got a queen, which also counts 01:27.990 --> 01:29.400 as a ten to begin with. 01:29.430 --> 01:32.160 So these are the first cards that are dealt. 01:32.160 --> 01:35.010 And both of these cards are revealed. 01:35.070 --> 01:39.210 And then the dealer deals another card to each of you. 01:39.240 --> 01:44.970 Now the dealer's second hand is concealed so you can't work out what their total is. 01:44.970 --> 01:47.400 But you can see your own card. 01:47.400 --> 01:50.670 So at the moment we don't know what the dealer has. 01:50.670 --> 01:58.050 It might be ten plus anything, but we know that our score is 13, ten plus three. 01:59.280 --> 02:03.090 At this point, you might ask the dealer for another card. 02:03.090 --> 02:10.270 So now you have three cards and luckily it adds up to 20 without going over 21. 02:10.780 --> 02:16.660 But there is also a possibility that you might have gotten a card that would have pushed your total 02:16.660 --> 02:20.170 over 21, at which point you now lose. 02:20.170 --> 02:23.200 And it doesn't matter what the dealer has in their hand. 02:23.230 --> 02:26.200 You've already lost because you've gone over 21. 02:26.740 --> 02:31.540 Now let's say that we got lucky and our total adds up to 20. 02:31.570 --> 02:37.660 Now, at this point, we say we don't want any more cards and the dealer reveals their hand. 02:37.840 --> 02:45.340 If, like in this case, they end up with 20 and we have 20, then we end up in a draw. 02:45.340 --> 02:52.390 So whenever your score equals the dealer score, then you will draw rather than win or lose. 02:52.720 --> 02:59.770 Now if on the other hand, the dealer ended up with an ace, which we know can count as an 11 and they 02:59.770 --> 03:04.480 actually scored higher than us, they have 21 and we have 20. 03:04.510 --> 03:06.820 Well, in this case we would lose. 03:07.420 --> 03:16.610 Now the rules also state that if the dealer ends up with a hand that's smaller than 17, so 16 or under. 03:16.640 --> 03:19.400 Then they must take another card. 03:19.790 --> 03:26.150 Those are the basic rules of blackjack, but I recommend that before you get started, head over to 03:26.180 --> 03:32.540 the link that's in the blackjack starting file and have a few games of blackjack just so that you can 03:32.540 --> 03:37.430 see for yourself how it actually works and how you win and how you lose. 03:37.760 --> 03:46.790 And then head over to the final version of the completed project and play our simplified version of 03:46.790 --> 03:47.810 blackjack. 03:48.020 --> 03:54.200 This way you'll see what the end result is that you're trying to create, and it will be easier when 03:54.200 --> 03:56.030 you're creating the code yourself. 03:56.060 --> 04:01.940 Now, as I mentioned, we're going to try and keep our version of blackjack a little bit simpler. 04:02.210 --> 04:04.640 And we're going to assume a couple of things. 04:04.670 --> 04:10.040 The first thing is that the cards that we're starting with comes from this list. 04:10.100 --> 04:15.080 You'll notice that I've got two through to ten all represented in the list. 04:15.080 --> 04:19.850 And then I've got Jack, Queen and King represented as tens as well. 04:19.850 --> 04:27.320 So this means that the ten has four times the probability of occurring compared to the other cards. 04:27.380 --> 04:34.640 Now the ace is going to start off being represented as 11, and it's going to count as 11 until the 04:34.640 --> 04:36.470 user goes over 21. 04:36.740 --> 04:41.210 Now finally we're going to assume that we have an infinite deck. 04:41.210 --> 04:46.220 So it means that when a card is drawn from the deck, it's not removed from the deck. 04:46.250 --> 04:51.170 Whereas in a real casino they have maybe 6 or 8 decks of cards. 04:51.170 --> 04:57.470 When a card is drawn, then there's less probability of that same card occurring again. 04:57.470 --> 05:03.890 And this is how professional card counters the people that the casinos hate the most actually go about 05:03.890 --> 05:06.890 trying to optimize and improve their chances. 05:06.890 --> 05:13.040 But in order to keep things simple in our game, we're not going to deal with things regarding probability 05:13.040 --> 05:15.230 or removing cards from the deck. 05:15.260 --> 05:20.660 We're going to assume that each of these cards in the list have equal chance of occurring. 05:21.150 --> 05:27.810 If you head over to the starting project, you'll see each of these rules written out in more detail. 05:27.840 --> 05:31.800 Take a look at it so that you're aware what our house rules dictate. 05:32.460 --> 05:38.070 Now, if you scroll to the very top of the blackjack project, I've given you four tracks. 05:38.130 --> 05:45.180 So just as when you start a video game, you have the choice of normal, hard, extra hard, or expert. 05:45.210 --> 05:47.220 It's the same in this project. 05:47.250 --> 05:50.850 You can limit yourself to using only one hint. 05:50.850 --> 05:56.550 If you are at expert level in Python, you can only use hint one and two. 05:56.580 --> 06:04.650 If you want an extra hard challenge and maybe a little bit of a cry at the end, there's also hard and 06:04.650 --> 06:07.440 normal, so I'll leave the choice up to you. 06:07.440 --> 06:11.520 And if you scroll down you'll find all the hints listed in here. 06:11.550 --> 06:17.760 Now I recommend everybody, no matter your experience, everybody should try out the blackjack game. 06:17.760 --> 06:21.960 And also look at how the final project is supposed to work. 06:21.960 --> 06:28.870 But then I've got other things, such as a list where I've broken down the program requirements. 06:28.900 --> 06:34.720 You know how we always say when you have a big problem, always try to break it down into smaller pieces? 06:34.750 --> 06:41.860 Now you can of course, create this list yourself by exploring the game, exploring the final project, 06:41.860 --> 06:46.120 and then writing your own to do list of things that need to be coded up. 06:46.120 --> 06:50.200 Or alternatively, you can look at the one that I've created inside. 06:50.200 --> 06:50.980 Hint two. 06:51.490 --> 06:59.050 Inside hint three I've created a flowchart for you, which takes the to do list and breaks it down into 06:59.050 --> 07:02.980 a flowchart where you can look at the logic in more detail. 07:03.010 --> 07:09.550 Now, of course, as always, it's a good idea to create your own flowchart using a tool like Draw.io 07:09.580 --> 07:11.650 or using a piece of pen and paper. 07:11.650 --> 07:17.230 But if you need help, it's there for you and you can download the PDF and read through it. 07:17.440 --> 07:24.610 Now the rest of the hints will go through how to solve this project in even smaller, bite sized chunks, 07:24.640 --> 07:30.800 depending on your own level of Python at the moment, choose your own difficulty level. 07:30.800 --> 07:37.460 But I just want to say before you get started that this project is difficult, and I wanted to give 07:37.460 --> 07:42.350 you a bit of a challenge and to push yourself so that you get stronger. 07:42.350 --> 07:48.740 But there will inevitably be moments where you will have doubt and you will be wondering, what am I 07:48.740 --> 07:49.250 doing? 07:49.250 --> 07:53.840 I don't understand anything, and in this moment, I want you to look yourself in the mirror and tell 07:53.840 --> 07:55.190 yourself that you got this. 07:55.190 --> 07:56.990 You can do it and that. 07:56.990 --> 07:59.660 Remember that I'm here rooting for you. 07:59.660 --> 08:01.010 I believe you can do it. 08:01.010 --> 08:05.090 You've got everything that you've learned so far will enable you to do it. 08:05.090 --> 08:08.000 There's nothing new in this challenge. 08:08.000 --> 08:10.580 You just have to put all the pieces together. 08:10.580 --> 08:16.340 You have to push through the difficult parts and maybe sleep on a problem and think about it and then 08:16.340 --> 08:17.300 come back to it. 08:17.300 --> 08:19.130 But I believe you can do it. 08:19.160 --> 08:26.150 Once you're ready, pause the video, head over to the starting project and give it a go. 08:26.750 --> 08:31.850 And once you're satisfied, then head over to the next lesson and I'll walk through the solution with 08:31.850 --> 08:32.300 you.