How would a programme know to stop before 21?

Hi

As a off again on again novice, I am trying to work out if I made a black Jack game, how would I get the computer to decide to stop between 16 and 21 without it always going over 21 even if it had 21? What would be the most basic way? I'm no student but if people still think I should work this out for myself where is the best place on the net? It's probally in one of my 6 C++ programming books but I can't see it.

Chris

I've coded a console blackjack game for fun a few months back, you can get the source here:

http://70.86.55.186/~guyonasm/coding/blackjack.tar.gz

Simply use WinRAR to extract it.

As for your question, You could keep track of the total hand value of the computer in lets say cValueCount. And we also kept the players hand value in pValueCount. Then you'd run a conditional statement on it as such:

Code:

---

while (valueCount < 16 && pValueCount <= 21)
{
// keep picking cards
}

---

Its a slight adaption to my code, but basically if the player's hand is already over 21, then there's no need to get anymore cards, because we've already won regardless. But if we're below the value of 16, we're going to pluck again.

Just wanted to say thanks very much :)

I was trying to think too complicated Artificail Intelagence instructions (which I got no training on) and your right that's a lot more simple.

Chris