Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack: earned $9998 in 1:07.206. Yet another one to check off the Intellivision bucket list.
Objectives
- Aims for maximum score
- Heavy luck manipulation
- Genre: Board
1 Player I opted to only do one player in this TAS because having a second player also get maximum earnings wouldn't be any more entertaining, would make the TAS over twice as long, and would be a major nuisance trying to optimize both players' earnings at the same time.
Selecting Game There's four different card games you can play - [1] Five Card Stud, [2] Seven Card Stud, [3] Five Card Draw, and [4] Blackjack. Blackjack is by far the most optimal game to play as rounds are insanely shorter, and up to $999 can be bet at once compared to $99 in the other three.
Pressing [5] on the gamepad chooses a game at random and [6] chooses the game last played. [6] is the best means of selecting a game because it skips the dealer announcing what game was selected, saving 160 frames each time. Additionally, pressing [6] for the first game automatically selects Blackjack for some reason.
RNG The order of the cards dealt is determined by the frame the game type is selected (i.e. when deck shuffling stops). As a result, taking a longer time to select betting amount, hit, double down, etc. will not affect luck.
General Rules
- The player cannot bet or double down with an amount that exceeds their wallet.
- Up to $999 can be bet in one round ($1998 if doubling down).
- The player receives 1.5x the value of their bet if they get a Blackjack.
- If the above multiplication results in a decimal number, it is rounded down to the nearest integer.
- The dealer is required to stand once his hand reaches 17 or more points.
- Manual text: http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/games/instructions/gaming/poker.txt
TAS Summary
| Round | Frame | Wallet | Bet | Outcome |
|---|
| 1 | 19 | 1 | 1 | Dealer stands
|
| 2 | 302 | 2 | 2 | Dealer hits once
|
| 3 | 601 | 4 | 4 | Blackjack
|
| 4 | 884 | 10 | 10 | Blackjack
|
| 5 | 1147 | 25 | 25 | Blackjack
|
| 6 | 1410 | 62 | 62 | Dealer hits once
|
| 7 | 1721 | 124 | 124 | Blackjack
|
| 8 | 2076 | 310 | 310 | Blackjack
|
| 9 | 2432 | 775 | 769 | Blackjack
|
| 10 | 2733 | 1928 | 964 | Double Down, Dealer stands
|
| 11 | 3104 | 3856 | 964 | Blackjack
|
| 12 | 3351 | 5302 | 964 | Blackjack
|
| 13 | 3601 | 6748 | 964 | Double Down, Dealer hits once
|
| 14 | 4007 | 8676 | 964 | Blackjack
|
| 14 | 4027 | final input
|
| 14 | 4252 | 9999 |
Outcomes
| Outcome | Frame Cost | Bet Multiplier | Effective Frame Cost |
|---|
| Blackjack | 227 | 1.5x | 151.3
|
|---|
| Double Down, Dealer stands | 338 | 2x | 169
|
|---|
| Double Down, Dealer hits once | 389 | 2x | 194.5
|
|---|
| Dealer stands | 230 | 1x | 230
|
|---|
| Dealer hits once | 281 | 1x | 281 |
|---|
Since each outcome requires a different number of frames to play out and can award different multiples of your bet, we need a way of estimating each outcome's relative advantage. Effective frame cost divides the frame cost by the bet multiplier, and estimates just that. A Blackjack is clearly the best hand, but is also fairly rare, meaning depending on how long we must wait to manipulate a Blackjack, it may be more optimal to choose a different outcome:
- Allow the dealer to stand if the next Blackjack requires a wait of more than 115 frames (230x1.5-230), and either stand or hit once if the wait is more than 140 frames (281x1.5-281).
- Allow the dealer to hit once if the first scenario where the dealer does so is over 51 frames (281-230) sooner than the first scenario where he stands.
- Doubling Down: deciding whether the dealer should stand or hit is similar to that explained above.
- The number of double downs and Blackjacks in later rounds should yield a wallet size on the final round just under one Blackjack's earnings from $9999, so as to not waste any time earning money not used in the $9999 total. A Blackjack for the final round is most optimal as no interaction is required after the bet amount is confirmed.
- Having the dealer hit more than once was not optimal anywhere.
- P1 hits when doubling down because it is required to do so; hitting otherwise is a time-costly animation, and was not optimal anywhere.
Bets Some dollar amounts wagered in this TAS may seem rather odd. For instance, in round 9 why did I bet $769 instead of $775? In order to type out two numbers consecutively, the game must recognize two separate inputs, which requires pausing for three frames. To avoid this, I instead bet the highest amount which does not contain consecutive numbers, 769.
Pressing the [Enter] key for your bet recalls what was bet on the previous game. Using this feature on rounds 11-14 saves three keystrokes per round. It can also be used on the first round to automatically bet all the money in your wallet.
As a result of these considerations, by round 14 I had $8676 instead of a potential $8866. Either way, the same number of turns would be required to reach $9999.
Possible Improvements? This TAS is the best result of the logical approach detailed above. However, with any TAS that's super luck-dependent like this one, it's always possible that nonintuitive choices early in the TAS could manipulate great luck later on. It's not possible for me to test every one of these scenarios (although I did test several), so I'll leave that task to other TASers should they decide to investigate that.
Suggested Publication Notes Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack was a pack-in game for the Intellivision Model 1. As a result, it sold over 1.9 million cartridges, making it the best-selling Intellivision game of all time.
Hit! Stick! Raise! Discard? Drop! You win! One or two players can play against the dealer in Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack. Rules are identical to Las Vegas table rules. You have a choice of Blackjack or three different Poker games, and if you win, you can carry your
pretend winnings from one game to another. Keep in mind you'll need to be sharp to outplay the computerized dealer -- he knows what he's doing!
Through the powers of luck manipulation, TheWinslinator breaks Las Vegas and makes the dealer very angry by turning $1 into $9999 in just over a minute.
Suggested Screenshot Frame 4253-4372 (this is after the movie ends)
Memory: So there are a number of problems with this submission.
Secondly, the submission did not get a particularly great audience response which means the goal needs to be vaultable. However there are several things keeping this from being vaultable. One can merely set the amount of money one has to the cap from the beginning. It is possible to continue playing after reaching said cap. It does not meet the rules on
full completion because it is merely a score cap and not the inability to score more points. Due to this, I do not see this goal as particularly vaultable.
In fact I cannot think of a goal for this game that would actually be vaultable. A single hand of blackjack would be fairly trivial and there doesn't seem to be any way to make it meet the
criteria for games without clear endings. The other modes are poker which have similar problems. I might be overlooking something but I cannot find any way this game can enter vault.
Rejecting.
