Blackjack Lab

A Blackjack Expected Value Calculator and Custom Chart Generator. Unlike other blackjack EV calculators that use simulation-based approaches (e.g., Monte Carlo) to estimate EV, this calculator performs an exact computation by traversing the entire probability tree. This guarantees that outputs are fully reproducible and mathematically precise.

Installation

Select the latest release and download the version for your OS. Unzip the downloaded folder and open it in your terminal.

Usage

To see available functions, run:

./BlackjackLab help

To see details on how to use a function, run:

./BlackjackLab <function> --help

EV calculation

To calculate the EV of each action for a specific player hand vs specific dealer hand, run:

./BlackjackLab ev-calc --player-cards <cards> --dealer-upcard <card>

You can add custom parameters, or leave blank to use defaults:

# EV of player 16 vs dealer 8 in single deck blackjack with no double after splits where dealer hits soft 17
# The rest of the game rules (run './BlackjackLab ev-calc --help' to see) are defaulted.
./BlackjackLab ev-calc --player-cards 10,6 --dealer-upcard 8 --decks 1 --das false --s17 false

Example output from the command above:

Calculating EV for optimal strategy...
Hit EV: -0.424823
Stand EV: -0.527007
Split EV: nan
Double EV: -0.849645
Surrender EV: -0.5

Optimal Action: Hit
Optimal EV: -0.424823

Strategy Chart Generation

To generate a custom strategy chart for any combination of game rules, run:

./BlackjackLab strategy

To see defaults and other info, run:

./BlackjackLab strategy --help

Add custom game rules or use defaults:

# Generate a strategy chart for 6 deck blackjack with no double after split
./BlackjackLab strategy --decks 6 --das false

The results will be written to a csv file (strategy.csv by default, but can be changed by adding '--output <filename.csv>' to the command).

To turn the csv file into a strategy chart, first make sure python is installed with matplotlib and pandas. Then, in the same folder as before, run:

python chart_generator.py <filename.csv>

Add the '--save <filename.png>' flag to the command to save the chart with a custom name.

Example chart generated using command above:

License

This project is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
You may use, share, and adapt it for non-commercial purposes, with attribution.

See LICENSE.md or CC BY-NC 4.0 for full details.

Contact

Suggestions and improvement requests are welcome!

For bugs, suggestions, or improvements, please open an issue on GitHub.