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Joined: Oct '11
Location: Sweden
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 1410
Posted by jessthehuman: To illustrate this, I would say to anyone who knows even the most basic of computer programming, write a small console based program, to randomly pick a number from 1-52, then iterate it literally billions of times.. It will in all likelyhood complete those billions of iterations WITHOUT error.. I would love to see a human repeat the feat.. A human couldn't even complete the same amount of shuffles in their lifetime, let alone complete them without ever a single error in randomness. A computer can do it in less than a second.
Computer bit-error rates are extremely low, the amount of times you would have to play out the the iterated sequence (of billions of simulated shuffles) before you even hit a single 1bit error is monstrous. And considering all modern code run-times include error-correct for generally single-bit right through to 3 or bit errors..
well, I have to say that you do make a VERY GOOD point here. But I'm still not quite convinced. The reason is simple: From my experience, a program is far less likely to make an error, but also far less likely to catch the error and correct it.
If I'm wrong in this, I'm more then willing to let you guys set me straight
Joined: Feb '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 1886
Posted by TheMachineQC: To me as long as no one knows wich cards are about to be dealt it is random. The human factor is more important than the mathematics, because in the end poker is all about the decisions you make.
Of course a well done RNG is theoretically more random than physicly shuffling a deck, but it shouldn't influence a player's decision in any particular spot... So pretty useless question IMO.
Hey, you can criticize the question but it has started a debate. Ironically, I agree with you and see them both as equally fair. But I anticipated that some people would see them as different. I pretty much already said this but I'll say it again:
if no player can predict the cards better than any other player and before the cards are revealed they are theoretically any card, then the deal is FAIR.
Now I would suggest that some shuffling by hand is not that good, and cards may stick together, which might result in high cards being grouped together as they get are collected from the board, but professional dealers should shuffle well. Also the way cards are dealt, only the flop cards are next to each other in the shuffled deck so grouped cards are separated hand to hand that way. The bottom line is that after the Ah the next card in the deck is just as likely to be any card until you consider the starting order and number of split decks, which is impossible for humans to factor and would be so slight that the maths wouldn't be worth changing.
I don't know much about card shuffling machines but I think they would also be effectively random.
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
Posted by zeroster: This thread is actually two conversation at once. One is about fairness the other about which is the most reliable way to randomize a deck.
IMO they are equally fair, however the most reliable way to randomize the deck is undoubtedly an RNG.
Yes the thread did branch and your short but sweet reply is correct. Although I would add regarding fairness - I would disagree slightly only because there are some very good card-players out there that have excellent minds for memory of order of cards.. You can watch youtube clips of card-shufflers who are VERY apt at following the path of certain cards through the shuffle. And there's plenty of other players who are quite good at remembering which cards were grouped together and can then gain a slight edge by weighting certain cards as more likely to follow after each other after a shuffle. Although 'burning' cards obviously somewhat alleviates this edge.
But generally speaking, as aWood points out, any shuffle or randomisation which leaves no player sure of which card is likely to be next is as fair as any other.
But when it comes to which is the "best" or most "random" shuffle an RNG wins hands down, likewise when it comes to any sort of error, RNG ones again wins hands down when it comes to low-probability of an error, this basically isn't even debatable.
Joined: Jan '09
Location: Italy
Age: 53 (M)
Posts: 3871
Posted by jessthehuman:
Posted by erru9107:
... I still would prefer that a human had done the shuffling.
There isn't any risks when it comes to errors which, lets face it, programs or machines eventually will encounter
IMHO human error is far more likely than machine error.
What I wanted to mean in myposts is (assuming fairness of the dealers) also his error is random: the machine can't make errors and this fact doesn't match with real life.
Let me make an example to explain better what I mean; If you let fall on the ground from your hand abox of toothpicks their position on the ground is REALLY RANDOM (including toothpicks sticking each others, imperfection of the floor, stickyness of the hands and so on). If you write an algorithm to reproduce the same phenomenon you are just SIMULATING what happen in real world. Will you input a perfect floor or not? Are your hand dry? Are the toothpicks identical each other?
So what I mean is: if I have to choose between an original pair of trousers and a PERFECT imitation of the same trousers (but I know they are an imitation) I go for the original ones.
Posted by jessthehuman: No offence or anything, but I do wonder if that thinking comes from a product of your age perhaps?
PS: about my age my grandfather used to say "well, at least I reached it" (just joking of course)
Edited by magatt966 (19 September 2012 @ 08:46 GMT)
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
Posted by magatt966:
Posted by jessthehuman:
Posted by erru9107:
... I still would prefer that a human had done the shuffling.
There isn't any risks when it comes to errors which, lets face it, programs or machines eventually will encounter
IMHO human error is far more likely than machine error.
What I wanted to mean in myposts is (assuming fairness of the dealers) also his error is random: the machine can't make errors and this fact doesn't match with real life.
Let me make an example to explain better what I mean; If you let fall on the ground from your hand abox of toothpicks their position on the ground is REALLY RANDOM (including toothpicks sticking each others, imperfection of the floor, stickyness of the hands and so on). If you write an algorithm to reproduce the same phenomenon you are just SIMULATING what happen in real world. Will you input a perfect floor or not? Are your hand dry? Are the toothpicks identical each other?
So what I mean is: if I have to choose between an original pair of trousers and a PERFECT imitation of the same trousers (but I know they are an imitation) I go for the original ones.
I kinda get where you're coming from, but I think I could just as easily argue that the hand-shuffling is the simulation (of randomness) and a properly seeded (by external environmental random variables) RNG is the REAL deal.
Posted by magatt966:
PS: about my age my grandfather used to say "well, at least I reached it" (just joking of course)
Hah! I agree completely with that sentiment, the older you get the more you realise the truth in that for sure. I've seen enough people 'go' even at my age and are at the beginning of enough long-term health issues myself, to really see that.
