Question

The PHP blackjack script is simple, I have an array of cards and I select a random one and add it and it’s also pretty easy to keep the count the hard part comes in with the aces.

Is there any efficient method to counting them except bruteforcing? Theoretically it would be possible (although highly unlikely) to get 4 aces in a row, how would I make it count as 14 and not 44, 34, 24 etc? (closest to 21 without getting over it)

Answer 1

Something like this to handle the aces:

$total = 0;
// Sort in a way that the aces are last, handle other cards FIRST
foreach($cards as $card)
{
    switch($card)
    {
        case "king":
        case "queen":
        case "jack":
        case "10":
            $total += 10;
            break;

        // Etc, other cards

        case "ace":
            if($total >= 11)
            {
                $total += 1;
            }
            else
            {
                $total += 11;
            }
            break;
    }
}