234 Program Description ------------------- Faro is one of the oldest gambling games played with cards in the world. It had its origin in Italy sometime before 1600. It was known as "pharaon" in the French court of Louis XIV. Louis' royal gamblers gave it that name because one of the honor cards bore the face of an Egyptian Pharaoh. When it was adopted by the English in the 1700s the name was shortened to simply "faro". The game was first played in this country in New Orleans but quickly moved up the Mississippi in riverboat casinos and then spread across the west like a prairie fire. The rest of the country became so engulfed in its flame that by about 1915 faro was regarded as the national American card game. Western housesadvertised that a faro game was played inside by displaying a sign bearing the likeness of a tiger. Playing the game was known as "Bucking the Tiger". By the1930s the game was not played outside Nevada but today it is hard to find a gameof Faro in that state. This computer program is an simulation of that game for one player on the IBM-PC or any MS-DOS compatible. All bets which could be placed in the casino game are emulated in this program. The casekeeper is displayed in the same way as it would appear in a casino. All bets are paid and money tracked by the program. Players begin by entering their initial stake and may play until they either decide to quit or lose all their money. A "Farobank" is established to give players an incentive to win. This disk file keeps track of all money lost by players and all money paid to players over their initial stake. This bank can never be broken but it can be driven into a negative balance by players who win their bets. It is the house and, as such, will eventually acquire more money than is paid out but will generate player interest as the game progresses. Starting the Program -------------------- No procedure is necessary to initialize the diskette other than reading thedocumentation which you are doing right now. You may wish to place a copy of COMMAND.COM on your diskette so that when the program ends you will not get a message to insert your DOS diskette in the default drive but that is not necessary to run this program. When you want to play the game just insert your diskette in the default drive and type FARO after the DOS prompt then strike the carriage return. The program name will be displayed next along with a copyright notice. You will then be prompted to enter the number of $1 chips you want to buy from the bank. You can enter any positive number up to 30,000 here. If you attempt to rob the bank by purchasing a negative number of chips or if you buy none the game will end before you play the first turn. How to Play Faro ---------------- Even though this was the most popular card game in America at the turn of the century I doubt very many people know how to play the game today. I will first explain how the game would be played if you played it in a casino. The object of the game is to correctly guess the rank of either one of two cards dealt from a pack of 52 standard playing cards. The Ace is low and odd with rank proceeding in numerical order through Jack, Queen and King. The Jack is odd, Queen even and King odd in this sequence. The cards are shuffled and the deck turned face up in a holder or box so that the top card is always exposed. The first card thus showing is called the soda card, or just soda, andis dead as far as betting action is concerned. After all players have placed their initial bets the dealer removes the soda card and places it to the far right of the box. He then removes the next card from the box and places it between the box and the soda. This exposes two cards from the deck. The first card drawn which was placed next to the box is designated as the loser card. The card which is visible as the top card of the deck in the box is the winner card. Bets on these two ranks are then settled. Players who bet on the correct rank for losing card and those who bet on the rank of winning card are paid the amount of their bet by the house. The action is repeated until three cards remain in the box. Bets not settled in the current round may remain on the table until a decision is reached through the appearance of the bet card as one of the two cards dealt in any round unless theplayer decides to remove or change his bet between rounds. If a bet remains on the table it can either win, lose or draw. If the rank of the winner and loser is the same the player gets half of his bet back while the house gets the other half. The game allows two other bets to be placed. A player may bet that either the winner or loser will be the high card. The house pays even money for this bet just as it does for bets on the rank of the card. However, if both cards dealt are of the same rank this bet remains on the table until it is settled by a succeeding turn. The player may also bet that either the winner or loser is either odd or even. In this case if both cards drawn are either odd or even thebet remains on the table until a succeeding turn decides it. After 24 such turns of two cards have been dealt another bet may be placed by the player. At this point the casekeeper will show the rank of cards remaining in the deck. Three situations may exist at this point. Either all three cards are different rank, two cards are the same rank and one card is different or all three cards are the same rank. The bettor may call the turn bydesignating which card will appear first and second at this time. If all three cards are different rank the house will pay 4:1 odds if the player can correctlyenumerate the next cards dealt in the order of their appearance. If two cards are of the same rank and one is different it is called a cat-hop and the house pays 2:1 odds to call the turn. If all three cards are the same rank it is a cat-hop on colors and the bettor must designate the color of the next two cards out of the box for 2:1 odds. All standard bets may also be placed for the last turn. Just as with the first card there is no action on the last card in the deck. It is called the Hoc or hock card. Any bets placed on it are returned tothe player before the deck is reshuffeled for the next game. In order to place a bet on a card to win the player places his chips on thelayout designating his choice. To bet the card to lose he places a marker on top of his chips. At one time this marker was a copper penny so the term "Coppering" a bet evolved. Thus, to copper a bet means that the bet is being placed on the losing card. As each card is turned, the casekeeper records the case of the card on a device that is reminiscent of an abacus. This device has 13 rows with 4 wooden spindles in each. All spindles are positioned against one end of the frame. If the first card out in any case is a loser the spindle is moved over to touch the other end of the frame. If it is a winner a finger width is placed between it and the frame. If the second card out is a loser the next spindle is moved down to touch the first while if it is a winner a finger width is placed betweenit and the first spindle. This goes on until all four suits have been played atwhich time all spindles are pushed together against the other side of the frame from which they started. Player strategy has been developed around this device since at any time a betor can tell how many cards are left to play, what their denomination is and how the preceding cards in that rank have been drawn. However, there is no scientific basis for any such strategy. It's just a way to pick a bet. Playing the Computer Game ------------------------- After entering the number of chips you want to buy the Faro layout will be displayed. The casekeeper will be displayed at the bottom of your screen over which will be the betting area while the top of the screen will display the cards as they are drawn. On the right hand side of the screen your current cash status will be exhibited along with a reminder that to remove a bet you must press the F1 key while to end the game you should strike the ESC key. On the initial display you will also see two other reminder messages. Theytell you what you may do with the F2 and F4 key. If you grow tired of seeing green cards you may change the color to light blue by pressing the F4 key. If you have anything but the most expensive RGB monitor you will find that you must increase the brightness of the display to see the casekeeper as it was meant to appear. The disks should be green or yellow. On low intensity some monitors display the color yellow as if it were brown. This will show up very poorly on the red background so you must use the F2 key to increase brilliance. The two initial reminder messages will appear only until the end of the first turn. However, the F2 and F4 keys will function whenever the message to strike any key to place a bet is displayed. The only other time they will function is between turns when all the players money has been bet but not yet lost. The next message displayed will be to strike any key to place a bet. This message will appear only when the player has money with which to make a bet. Ifhe has none available, as would be the case if all his cash were already on the table as an unsettled bet, then this message will not appear. The message will appear on the screen for about ten seconds. During this time the player may indicate that he wants to place a bet by striking any key. Three short beeps will be sounded before the message is removed and the next turn dealt. The player is never obligated to bet on a turn. He may want to let all bets ride before placing another bet. So without striking a key the program will continueto deal turns. After striking any key, the player will be prompted for the amount of his bet. In this game the house minimum bet is $1 while the maximum bet that can beplaced is $500. If the player tries to place a bet larger than $500 or smaller than $1 the program will remind him of the betting limits and reprompt him for his bet. If he tries to bet more money than he has he will be reminded of his current holdings and be reprompted for a new bet. To exit this routine without placing a bet just press the ESC key. If you have already entered a bet and want to change it, the ESC key can be used to clear the amount entered. The backspace key will work as it normally does when entering text. When you have set down the correct amount of your bet you shouldpress the carriage return key. Once the amount of the bet has been established the program will ask on what the bet should be placed. Bets can be placed on any of the cases shown immediately above the casekeeper by striking the single letter or number which designates that case. Bets may also be placed on H for High, O for Odd or E forEven to place a bet on the winning card or the letter L to place a bet that the losing card will be high. Except for the H/L bet the next prompt will ask if the bet should be coppered. So if the player wants to bet that the 2 will be a losing card he would respond by striking the letter Y here while to bet the 2 will be a winning card he would strike the letter N. If more than one bet is placed on the same case those bets will be merged. However, if the resultant bet on any case will exceed $500 the total will be reduced to that figure by the program. In the case of a H/L bet or O/E bet the message will appear to remove the existing bet before placing another one. Bets on the winning and losing cards and H/L or O/E will be settled after each turn. If both cards are odd or both cards are even or if both cards are the same rank bets on H/L and O/E will remain on the table until they are settled by a succeeding turn. Bets on anything other than the winning and losing card will also remain on the display until settled by a succeeding turn. Between turns the player may remove any bet he has made by pressing the F1 key. He may remove all bets he placed or only certain bets. For a bet on casesthe player may effectively remove it by placing an equal bet on the opposite card. Thus, to remove a $100 bet on the 9 as a winner the player could place a $100 bet on the 9 as a loser. These bets would cancel each other, all money bet would be returned to the player and the board cleared of the token used to indicate that a bet was made. This procedure should not be used though since itis not what would happen if you placed opposing bets on the same case in a casino. When only three cards remain in the deck the player will have the chance tocall the turn. If the three remaining cards are different the House will pay 4:1 odds for correctly calling it. If any two cards are of the same rank or if all three are the same rank the odds are 2:1. For cards of the same rank the program will inform the player just what is left in the deck even though he could call it without knowing what remains. Bets may be placed as usual on the last turn after the player decides whether or not he wants to call it. Settlement for calling the turn, final betsand return of money placed on the hock card will follow the final turn. After abrief pause the game will automatically start all over again if the player has any money left to bet. At any time, the player may press the ESC key to exit the game. He will be told how many bets he placed, what he started with and how much money he is leaving the game with. The status of the Farobank will also be displayed at this time. Program Support and Suggested Donation -------------------------------------- You may write me about any problems you encounter using this program and expect a quick response. Please describe the problem in detail and provide printed output of the associated screen images. For help in understanding how to play FARO, the best source of information is in your local library. There are many books on gambling there and the librarians are usually very helpful. Don't expect to go to Las Vegas, Reno or Atlantic City to find a game of FARO though. I did and couldn't. It seems FARO is just like Latin. It's as dead asit can be (first it killed the Romans and now it's killing me). This program is being distributed as shareware. That means that although Iretain all copyright priviledges you, as an end user, may make copies of this program for distribution to anyone else you think would enjoy the game. You can not alter the program only make exact copies of it. I must say that I really never believed in the "shareware" principle; ie. that you will pay me for my program after you have used it. I have an entire catalog of programs I market as ¢heapware (that is cheapware with a cent sign). I began by pricing these programs below what other similar programs cost but quickly found out that the cost of advertising prohibited me from selling them at that price for long. Well, you can make me a believer in "shareware". If you find this program is entertaining I would suggest you make a contribution to convince me to make more of my programs available as shareware. I suggest $15 donation but anything will be accepted. And you will get more than just the satisfaction of helping support this author with your contribution. Along with a toll free 800 number for support, Iwill send you a registration coupon equal to the amount of your contribution which may be used when purchasing any other software from my catalog (which willalso be included). So if you like this program you have nothing to lose by sending the requested donation --- you are just prepaying your next purchase. The address to mail your questions concerning the program and donations is: Robert L. Nicolai 4038 N. Ninth Street St. Louis, MO 63147 Telephone: 314-621-7118
