30 hands. Millions on the line. Whose blackjack bot will reign supreme?
PROGRAMMING RULES
- Bots must be programmed and given a name prior to the start of the game. At a minimum, you must program the bot how to bet and how to play in any possible circumstance, to include whether and, if so, when to take insurance. In the event that, due to mod error, I fail to catch an ambiguous situation, then:
- If there is not a conclusive decision on whether to take insurance, the bot will not take insurance.
- If there is not a conclusive decision on how to bet, then the bot will bet the minimum.
- If there is not a conclusive decision on how to play the hand, it automatically forfeits its bet with no refunds given.
- If there is not a conclusive decision on whether to take insurance, the bot will not take insurance.
- Kilobit Casino will allow bots that count cards, but you must manually program how your card counting system works into the bot—casino security is suspicious of bots with Internet access and cannot accept bots that name a counting system but do not describe it. For the same security reasons, hyperlinks and image links are not allowed in the programming of your bot.
- You may look up betting and playing strategies while programming your bot, but you may not collaborate with other players while doing so.
- Just like you yourself are not allowed to cheat, you are not allowed to program your bot to cheat either. Things you can't base your bot's actions on include things like the dealer's hole card, cards in the shoe, and the programming of other robots (it can remember another bot's past actions, though).
- Bots have computer vision and therefore knows everything about the outside world that a normal human blackjack player would if a human were playing for it. You also have access to a math library that can do anything Wolfram Alpha can.
- Bots do not have an internal RNG and therefore cannot resolve actions directly at random. It has ALMOSTperfect memory, so itCANact based on cards it has seen before, for example. (When reshuffles occur, it automatically "forgets" which cards have already been dealt from the current shoe since that information has obviously become outdated, though reshuffles do not erase a bot's memory of what cards it has actually seen.)
- Your bots can be as complex as you like within the above rules, but keep in mind that overly complex bots are more prone to mod error when its program is executed. (See rule 12 in the next section for how this will be addressed.) If you have any questions about what is and isn't allowed, feel free to ask in thread.
TOURNAMENT RULES
- There are 30 hands in the tournament. After hands 10, 18, and 24, the bot with the lowest score will be eliminated. If there is a tie for lowest score, each bot that is not safe will be dealt one card, and the low card will be eliminated. If there is a tie for the lowest card and the suits differ, then the ranking of suits from highest to lowest will be spades, then hearts, then diamonds, then clubs. If the tie is still unbroken, the players still involved in the tie will be redealt another card, reshuffling if necessary to ensure there are enough cards to deal to each bot still unsafe, and the process repeats as necessary until all ties are broken. After hand 30, the bot with the highest chip total wins; if there is a tie, the tiebreaker procedure above will describe which bot gets second place, and the high card will win the tournament.
- Your bot will be given $1,000,000 to start with. Whenever the amount of money your bot has falls below the amount of the minimum bet, it will be granted a rebuy of just enough money to make the minimum bet. There are unlimited rebuys.
- Bets must be between $5,000 and $1,000,000 in multiples of $1,000.
- There are six decks in the shoe. When the dealer is ¾ of the way through the shoe, it will announce a reshuffle after the current hand.
- Your bot is trying to get closer to 21 than the dealer without going over. Tens and face cards are worth 10, an ace may be treated as 1 or 11, and all other cards are worth face value. Your bot will be dealt two cards, both face up. The bot at the top of the player list bets and plays first in the hand 1, the bot second from the top goes first in hand 2, and so on in rotation. When it comes to your bot's turn, it may do one of five things:
- Hit:Your bot will be dealt another card.
- Stand:The turn advances to the next bot. If your bot is last to play, the turn goes to the dealer.
- Double down:Your bot's bet is doubled (unless it is programmed to increase its bet to less than double) and your bot is dealt one last card. After it gets its card, the turn goes to the next bot—your bot cannot hit its doubled hand, nor can it redouble. It may double down on any number, however.
- Split:Double your bot's bet and treat each card as the first card of two separate hands and it will be dealt another card. The doubled bet is split equally among the two hands, so one hand played for $25,000 becomes two hands played for $25,000 each. Your bot may only split two cards of the same value, and it is not allowed to split a hand more than three times.
- Surrender:Take half your bot's bet back, give up the other half, and fold the hand.
- The dealer must hit with 16 or less and stand on all 17s.
- If it comes your bot's turn and its two cards already total 21, it automatically wins. This is a blackjack. (Note that a two-card 21 after a split is not a blackjack, however.) Blackjack pays 3 to 2, so e.g. $10,000 becomes $25,000.
- If your bot's hand goes over 21 points, it loses the hand and its bet.
- As far as resolving bets is concerned, your bot's only opponent is the dealer. It doesn't matter if the bot next to yours has a higher hand than your bot—if your bot's hand's higher than the dealer's, it wins. If your bot ties, it gets its bet back but no extra money.
- If the dealer has an ace face up, the dealer will ask if your bot wants to pay insurance. Insurance costs half your bot's bet. After everybody has decided whether or not to pay insurance, the dealer will announce whether or not the dealer has a blackjack.
- If the dealer does have a blackjack, your bot loses its bet for the hand (unless it also has a blackjack, in which case it pushes). If it has paid insurance, that pays 2 to 1, so it usually nets to getting its money back.
- If the dealer doesn't have blackjack, your bot lose your its insurance money.
- If the dealer does have a blackjack, your bot loses its bet for the hand (unless it also has a blackjack, in which case it pushes). If it has paid insurance, that pays 2 to 1, so it usually nets to getting its money back.
- The dealer will not ask for insurance if it has an upcard of 10 or a face card, but will still announce whether or not it has blackjack.
- Kilobit Casino recognizes that things like radio interference, robot malfunctions, human error, and the like means that bots sometimes do things they're not supposed to. Therefore, after every elimination, there is a 24-hour break to verify that everything happened correctly. During this time, if there is a mod error in the execution of your bot's program, PM me what the error was and what should have happened and Kilobit Casino will replay all hands from when the error occured to when the game stopped for break. (They're nice enough people to restart the 24 hours after the replay, too.) When hands are replayed, all bot's memories of the way the hands were originally played are overwritten with the events of the replay. Because fixing an error has the potential to change which bot gets eliminated, eliminations are not final until the end of the break. If the mod error resulted in more cards being dealt than should have been, the deck will be reshuffled upon resumption of the game. Once the game resumes, mod errors stand, so I must be notified of any V/LA's.
PLAYERS
- Ircher
- inspiratieloos
- Nancy Drew 39
- Aronis
- Sirius9121
† Submitted bot needs correction or clarification; see your PM box.
