I’ve been hard at work adding features and flows to my Oh Craps python game. It has been interesting and educational while creating development git branches, tweaking and testing, writing pseudo code to work out how I want the features to work, implementing the changes, merging, and enjoying the results after pushing all the updates to my repo.
Place Bet Upgrades
One of the largest updates is automation. A lot of the strategies I’ve been playing with involve a lot of Place Bet manipulation, and initially the way I set up the Place and Lay bet flows required the player to enter a number for each of the Place Bet numbers in sequence, or hit Enter to pass them by. While this flow still exists to make specific number tweaks, it started to get tedious setting up the bets after a 7 Out or when wanting to make a sweeping change to all the bets. In light of this, I made the following changes:
- You can now bet across all the Place numbers or make Inside bets based on a set number of units. Both methods ask you if you want to cover the Point or not.
- On the Place Bet prompt, typing ‘a’ and hitting Enter will activate the Across mode, asking you for how many units to bet across the numbers. Since my game assumes a $5 minimum for the table, 1 unit is equal to $5. If you type 1, that will place $32 across, or $26 or $27 if the point is excluded. The game confirms the amount you are placing across which helps educate players on the correct terminology when playing at an actual table.
- On the Place Bet prompt, typing ‘i’ and hitting Enter will activate the Inside betting mode, placing bets only on the 5, 6, 8, and 9, or the Inside numbers. This functions the same way as the Across betting, asking for how many units you want Inside, plus prompting for the Point to be covered or not. The Point option only appears after a Point has been established.
- A lot of betting strategies tend to exclude the Point number when betting Across the Place numbers since that number is usually covered by the Pass Line bet. If the Point is hit, and another Point is established with the Place bets still up, there is now a method to move the bet off of the Point number and Place it on the previous Place number that was the last Point. Typing ‘m’ and hitting Enter on the Place Bet prompt after a Point has been established will activate this feature. The bet will automatically adjust to the correct equivalent bet amount when transferring between the 6 or 8 and the other numbers. For example, moving a $5 bet from the Place 4 to the Place 6 will automatically adjust it to a $6 bet. An $18 Place 8 bet will move to a Place 9 and become $15, and so on.
- Typing ‘p’ and hitting Enter on the Place Prompt will take down the Point number if it is covered after a Point has been established.
- Finally, a sweeping addition to Place Lay, Hard Ways, and the Field bets is the ability to take them all down or turn them off for the next roll. Typing ‘d’ at the respective bet prompt and hitting Enter will take down all the bets in that bet group. Typing ‘o’ and hitting Enter will turn all the bets in that group Off for the next roll, meaning they will not be affected by the next roll of the dice.
Hard Ways Upgrades
The Hard Ways bets underwent a little overhaul to make it easier to interact with them as the game progresses. Similar to the Place Bets, there are now a few prompt level features that affect all the bets as a whole without having to go in and tweak every individual bet.
- Typing ‘a’ and hitting Enter on the hard Ways prompt will activate the Across mode, asking for how many $1 units to place on each of the numbers. Entering 5 will put $5 bets on all the Hard Ways numbers, for example.
- A common bet for the Hard Ways is to spread money across them while going high on a particular number. Tossing in $5 to the stick man and calling out “hard Ways, High 6” will get you $1 each on the Hard 4, 8, and 10 while the remaining $2 would be placed on the Hard 6. Typing ‘h4’, ‘h6’, ‘h8’, or ‘h10’ at the Hard Ways prompt and hitting Enter will activate the Hard High mode, which will prompt you for your wager and spread the bet out properly across the hard ways while going high on the number chosen. ‘h4’ will go high on the Hard 4, and so on. This little algorithm was fun to figure out and I put it in the code wrapped in triple quotes as a comment. You can throw any number at it and it will do it’s best to divvy up the money properly, which is a lot nicer than forcing the stick man at the table to do that on the fly.
- Typing ‘d’ and hitting Enter at the Hard Ways prompt will take down all of your bets.
- Typing ‘o’ at the prompt will turn your Hard Ways bets off for the next roll.
- On top of these prompt additions, whenever a Hard Way hits or loses, you are now prompted if you want to go back up on a lost bet or if you want to alter your bet after a win.
Field Bet Upgrades
The Field bet got a little upgrade as well.
- Typing ‘d’ at the Field Bet prompt and hitting Enter will take down your bet. Faster than entering into the prompt just to type 0 and then get out of it.
- Typing ‘o; will turn your Field bet off for the next roll.
- After a Field bet loss or Win, you will be prompted to go back up on the bet after a loss or if you want the bet altered after a win. Makes Field bet strategies run much smoother and more efficiently.
Lay Bet Upgrades
- Typing ‘d’ at the Lay Bet prompt will take down all the Lay bets.
- Typing ‘o’ will turn the Lay bets off for the next roll.
- I implemented a 5% vig for the Lay bets which now gets paid out on a win.
Max Odds and Lay Limits
Max Odds and Lay Odds now have limits. My game assumes 3x4x5x odds for the table, and Lay odds max out at 6x the bet. When prompted for Odds, the Maximum allowed amount now appears in the prompt, and you’ll be ridiculed if you try to go over that amount.
Hop the Upgrades
Hop bets have finally made their way into my game. I had been trying to work out different ways of implementing them behind the scenes, and finally just added them to the overall array of Proposition Bets. Originally, the roll function didn’t give out the individual dice outcomes, but now two global variables are updated with each roll to keep track of exactly how each die rolled. This has been used to allow for Hop bets to be tracked and correctly paid, plus influences the call outs during the roll. You’ll now see the actual dice get called out individually, such as “A 6 3 9.” New codes have been added to the Prop Bet flow to access the Hop Bet numbers, plus more will be coming soon:
- Within the Prop Bet prompt, typing h4′, ‘h5’, ‘h10’, and so on will prompt you for the Hop bet for the particular number typed. ‘h5’ will Hop the 5s, etc. Each of the numbers will tell you what is expected for the bets. Some require Even bets, some require them to be divisible by 3.
- Typing ‘hez’ will prompt you to Hop the Easies, or place a $1 bet on each of the Easy Way hop bets. There are 15 of them, so these bets must be made in multiples of 15.
The Next Pass
Future updates may include the ability to bet on specific Hop outcomes, such as 6, 3 for the 9, etc. The World and Buffalo bets are on their way as well. Once those have been implemented, then I’m considering the game to be fully robust enough to be a true table simulator good enough to test out all kind of strategies from the common to the convoluted with a fully random roller.
At this point, the only things that are missing are Put bets, the ability to Buy the 5, 6, 8, and 9 Place bets (even though that is always a bad idea), Horn High bets, and tweaking the rolling system to include weighted rolls that simulate dice setting. All in all, this has been a blast to work on and update, and as I come across new strategies that require specific functions on the table, I’ll build them into my game while continuously working on making it more efficient and fun to play. Happy rolling!