The Original Buck Mann's Poker-For-One, often shortened to Buck Mann's Poker is a computer game released in 1983 by IPCO, or the International PC Owners user group.
It is 1281 lines of BASIC code written by Michael E. Lind to amuse his brother, Chuck. It was likely named after their uncle. It was coded on an IBM 5150, the first PC microcomputer released by IBM, and thus the PC which established the desktop computing standards by which PCs still operate today. The IBM 5150 retailed for $1565 upon release in 1981, equivalent to $5040 in 2022.
Michael Lind wanted to prove to his brother Chuck that he could learn to code on the family's new computer, so he cracked open the BASIC manual, consisting of 558 pages including index and appendices. The result of this was Buck Mann's Poker.
The game greets the player by introducing the dealer. The dealer is randomly chosen from one of 5 characters, each with its own style of speaking:
After this, the player is asked to input their name. There are multiple possible outcomes from this process. The game is coded to recognize the author's mother Regina, his father Louis, his sister-in-law Juanita (as "Nita"), and an unknown relative named Joyce. Relatives get to play for free. Additionally, if the player enters their name as one of "BUCK", "BUCK MANN", or "BUCKMANN", they are greeted as the boss and given $50,000 of "play" money while being informed of how the night has been so far. However, how well Buck's casino is doing has no effect on the gameplay nor how much money Buck has to play with.
If the player enters any other name, the game checks to see if they have an existing account, as the game will persist account data between play sessions. Upon the player's first session, they are asked how much money they have. If the player insists that they have no money, they are offered a chance to see "Sharky," the loan shark. If this is refused, the bouncer named "Billy" is summoned to throw you out. The game then plays a menacing tune through the PC speaker and the player is ejected back to the DOS prompt.
Assuming the player has an existing account or specifies an amount of cash to play with, the game proceeds. Aces are high. The deck is then shuffled and the player is offered the chance to cut. If the player chooses to cut the deck, they may ask for a thick cut or a thin cut. If both are refused, the dealer exasperately asks the player if they really want to cut. If the player then says they want to cut and refuse both options yet again, Billy is summoned to bounce them as, "I don't have time for this crap."
It would be easy to assume that cutting the deck accomplishes nothing in a game involving randomly chosen cards, but in fact it alters the behavior of the random card selection. The deck being played with is represented in memory as a 52-card shuffled deck with no Joker cards. The starting point of the deck is moved based on the type of the cut, or not moved if the player chooses not to cut.
Before being dealt a hand, the player must offer a bet anywhere between $1 and their total account balance. If the player attempts to bet more than their balance, they are given the opportunity to visit Sharky, whose mechanics will be explained later.
Once the bet has been set, the player is dealt five cards from the in-memory deck. The player may then choose to discard and replace any number of cards, one time. The hand is then judged to determine whether the player has won and by how much. The player's initial bet is multiplied by a score value as follows:
If the player wins, their account is credited their winnings. In the event of only 1 pair, the player simply breaks even. However, the player is given the choice to bet on the next drawn card for double or nothing. The player may bet on whether the next card will be higher or lower than 8. If they bet correctly, their winnings are doubled. If they bet incorrectly, they win nothing. If an 8 is drawn, the player receives their original winnings.
After all of this, the player's account is checked to see if they still have any money. If not, they are offered the chance to see Sharky or quit the game.
Sharky is a loan shark and lives up to his name. He will not offer the player a loan of less than $1000. The player may borrow up to $50,000 at a time, but may not owe him more than $100,000. When Sharky gives the player a loan, he keeps half "as interest" while the player is given the rest to gamble with. The entire amount must still be repaid. If the player asks for a loan of less than $1000, he will call it "chickenfeed."
At the end of each hand, the player is required to pay back any existing loans, in full. If the player cannot do this, then 10% is added to the loan balance. This offers an interesting element of strategy to the game, as pursuing winnings that amount to slightly less than the loan balance will buy the player time by leaving them more to bet with in the next hand. Should the player win big on that hand, they could potentially pay back the entire loan and any interest. However, should the player instead draw their account down to $0 while owing Sharky $100,000 or more, they will not be able to take any more loans and will be ejected from the game.
Overall, the game rewards clever risk management and requires a solid understanding of poker fundamentals. The central gameplay loop is essentially identical to the video poker machines found in casinos, in that a single player bets on their upcoming hand and wins or loses based solely on the strength of that hand.
The underlying code is serviceable if not maximally efficient. There is a fair amount of duplicated code which could be condensed to single copies with more conditional statements. Likewise, some text strings are duplicated which could be stored in single variables and used as required. This game makes use of the common POKE 106,0 command to clear the keyboard buffer, as the IBM PC used a circular keyboard buffer and it was possible to receive unexpected data from the keyboard buffer if it was not cleared between inputs.
The use of BASIC as a programming language introduces a number of constraints which would be alien to today's programmers. First, the entire program requires all lines to begin with a number, and for each line's number to be higher than the previous line's number. Although the line numbers can be incremented one by one, it was commonplace in BASIC programs to start each subroutine at a different, round number, such as 1000, 2000, etc. Buck Mann's Poker uses a structure much like this.
It must be noted that the game has no graphics as such, but uses ASCII code 437 to draw primitive graphics in text mode. Buck Mann's Poker uses a screen width of 40 text characters and 25 lines.
Forrest Alan "Chuck" Lind, for whom the game was made, passed away in 2011 at age 57. The sense of humor exhibited in the game, according to Michael Lind, was meant to mimic Chuck's own.
As of 2022, Michael Lind lives with his wife, Roxann Robinson in Chesterfield, Virginia. They have lived there for over 30 years.
Roxann Robinson is a delegate to the Virginia House of Delegates. She has held this office since 2010; prior to this, she was an optometrist and had no political experience. Though a Republican, she has sought to ban housing discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. On the other hand, Delegate Robinson has also participated in "transgender panic" rhetoric, suggesting that cisgender students might be made uncomfortable by having to share school restrooms with transgender classmates. It appears that outside of schools, Delegate Robinson is at least marginally progressive on LGBTQ policy compared to many of her Republican colleagues. She exhibits a clear passion for ensuring people have access to optometric services, doing charity work for the Special Olympics and working with local schools to ensure underprivileged children have access to corrective optometric equipment and treatments.
Michael Lind and Roxann Robinson have no children but reportedly have two cats. Michael Lind has been paid at least $3225 from his wife's political campaign funds over the years for services including political contributions, supplies, telephone outreach, Constant Contact reimbursement, postage, and mileage. Robinson's top campaign donors, outside of official Republican organizations, include the Virginia Optometric Association, Dominion Energy, Virginial Realtors, and various PACs.
Ms. Robinson is also on the board of Virginia Commonwealth University Health, an academic medical college which seeks to push the leading edge of healthcare technology in all of the specialties it serves. VCU Health had intended to develop the Public Safety Building in downtown Richmond but allegedly did not perform due diligence nor an appropriate cost analysis prior to making this commitment, resulting in an aborted project which the health system paid $73 million to exit. Costs continue to mount in the aftermath of this project and Governor Youngkin of Virginia has ordered a deeper investigation into whether this expensive mistake could have been avoided.
In any case, you should download The Original Buck Mann's Poker-For-One from MyAbandonware: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/the-original-buck-mann-s-poker-for-one-45p
BASIC programs may be run on modern systems using a free tool called PC-BASIC: https://github.com/robhagemans/pcbasic