exercism_puzzles/python/black-jack/HINTS.md

Hints

The Python comparisons tutorial and Python comparisons examples are a great introduction covering the content of this exercise.

1. Calculate the value of a card

• You can use the equality comparison operator == to determine if a card is an ace card: card == 'A'.
• You can use the containment operator in to determine if a substring is contained inside a string: 'Q' in 'KJQ'.
• You can use the int constructor to convert a str of an int to an int: int('13').

2. Determine which card has a higher value

• Once you have defined the value_of_card function, you can call it from other functions.
• You can use the value comparison operators > and < to determine if specific cards are greater than or less than a given value: 3 < 12.
• You can use the equality comparison operator == to determine if two values are equal to one another.

3. Calculate the value of an ace

• Once you have defined the value_of_card function, you can call it from other functions.
• You can use the order comparison operator > to decide the appropriate course of action here.

4. Determine Blackjack

• Remember, you can use the if/elif/else syntax to handle different combinations of cards.
• You can chain BOTH comparison operators and boolean operators arbitrarily: y < z < x or (y or z) and (x or z)
• You can reuse the already implemented value_of_card function.

5. Splitting pairs

• You can reuse the already implemented value_of_card function.
• You can handle the A case (when at least one of the cards in an ace) separately.

6. Doubling down

• An A scored at 11 will never allow doubling down if there are two cards in the hand.
• Given the first point, you should be able to reuse the already implemented value_of_card function.
• You can chain comparison operators arbitrarily: y < z < x.
• You can use the conditional expression (sometimes called a "ternary operator") to shorten simple if/else statements: 13 if letter == 'M' else 3.