The power of intuition?

[Gamblor]

An interesting article on the "randomness" of card shuffling, and how, for example, bridge players, can intuitively know the difference between a hand shuffled deck and a randomly, computer shuffled deck.

http://www.bridgeguys.com/SGlossary/ShuffleofCards.html

Some interesting quotes from article:

"many bridge players take advantage of the non-randomness of seemingly shuffled cards... These players had figured out that the cards were not being randomly shuffled, and that they could predict the distributions of cards by knowing what the deck looked like at the end of the previous hand."

"When computers were introduced into tournament bridge about 18 years ago, some players were puzzled and others outraged by the random hands the computer dealt and complained that the computers were not working right"

'At about the same time, a bridge encyclopedia was published. The encyclopedia "used a computer to figure out odds," Dr. Diaconis said. "For example, given that between my opponents there are seven hearts, what's the chances that one has four hearts and the other has three? Some of these odds were at variance with expert play. The experts had intuited - correctly - the actual ways the cards were shuffled. People thought the encyclopedia was wrong."'

This also brought to mind the U. of Iowa experiments mentioned in Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, whereby basically experimental subjects had to choose between a blue deck with +EV, and a red deck with -EV. It took about 30 cards to figure out blue deck for the conscious mind to pick up that the blue deck was better, and another 30-40 cards to actually consciously formulate why its better. But when hooked up to a polygraph like device that measured perspiration in the palm (an indication of stress or trepidation), the subjects displayed increased stress reaction to the red deck after only 10 cards!

A link to a bit more thorough explanation to this:

http://www.cardschat.com/blog/01/17/blink-by-malcolm-gladwell/ (Archive copy)

What brought these articles to mind was the Bodog BJ "cheating" thread. I mentioned there I played around with the free Bodog BJ game, and I too had a very "unnatural" run of cards similar to what the OP of that thread posted. It just did not seem like a run of cards I ever had in any other real life or computer simulated BJ game.

I think there is no doubt that the sub conscious mind does a huge amount of processing behind the scenes, and the conscious mind is only the tip of the iceberg, with the sub conscious mind consisting of the rest.

However, not sure if there's any way this can be taking advantage of, as mentioned the only time I encountered a very unnatural run of the cards was the situation just mentioned.

Any thoughts from other members? Anyone with extensive experience with hand shuffled and ASM/CSM/computer sim games "feel" the cards are different (personally I haven't noticed).

 

[Gamblor]

One more note, my fear is that ploppies might read this and get the wrong idea

 

[shadroch]

Computer shuffles mess with the natural Sacred Flow Of The Cards.

 

[MangoJ]

The difference between bridge and blackjack is: Player are able to rearrange the cards (i.e. sorting by value) in the hand, and when discarded are likely to stay in that order (not sure how to play bridge though). An incomplete shuffle will preserve those sequences to some degree.

On blackjack the situation is different: Players are not able to rearrange cards, as all cards are handled by the dealer. Hence there is no superstition-effect.

 

[aslan]

Computer shuffles mess with the natural Sacred Flow Of The Cards.

Computers are blasphemy. They should be banned from the gaming industry as immoral and deceitful devices. The human mind is being hogtied and dominated by unnatural means by these insidious abominations.

 

[Gamblor]

The difference between bridge and blackjack is: Player are able to rearrange the cards (i.e. sorting by value) in the hand, and when discarded are likely to stay in that order (not sure how to play bridge though). An incomplete shuffle will preserve those sequences to some degree.

On blackjack the situation is different: Players are not able to rearrange cards, as all cards are handled by the dealer. Hence there is no superstition-effect.

Thanks Mango, yes thats my general line of thinking. What actually happens in bridge is that for each round (4 cards from N,W,S,E players) they tend to form groups of cards of 4 cards of same suit - with somewhat of a tendency to go higher. And its only 52 card deck they have to deal with.

Of course in BJ, you often play with 6-8 decks, I would imagine the sequence of the shoe tends to remain highly random - furthermore I would imagine player decisions make the sequence dynamic and random.

Still worth considering if there's some pattern or sequence that might be exploitable, however slight and unlikely.

 

[aslan]

The difference between bridge and blackjack is: Player are able to rearrange the cards (i.e. sorting by value) in the hand, and when discarded are likely to stay in that order (not sure how to play bridge though). An incomplete shuffle will preserve those sequences to some degree.

On blackjack the situation is different: Players are not able to rearrange cards, as all cards are handled by the dealer. Hence there is no superstition-effect.

Yikes! What praytell is the superstition-effect?

 

[Gamblor]

Computers are blasphemy. They should be banned from the gaming industry as immoral and deceitful devices. The human mind is being hogtied and dominated by unnatural means by these insidious abominations.

Yes ploppy wisdom is right once again. Them dang computors are not right. Even expert bridge players say so!

 

[aslan]

Yes ploppy wisdom is right once again. Them dang computors are not right. Even expert bridge players say so!

:laugh:

 

[MangoJ]

Glad we have a Voodoo section to sharpen our ploppy skills.

 

[aslan]

Glad we have a Voodoo section to sharpen our ploppy skills.

But of course. With all this advantage play nonsense, our ploppy skills can become very dull indeed! Keep up the good work!

 

[sagefr0g]

hmm, so does the cut card effect and the way dealers feed the discard tray affect the nature of the randomness of the next pack to be dealt, yielding info that might be used in a similar way bridge players are apparently able to deduce from hand shuffled games? and isn't having information about the nature of the discards and the nature of the shuffle a good deal of what shuffle tracking is all about?
but whatever, is maybe the title of the OP a bit off, far as intuition goes?
seems more in the realm of estimation, to me. is estimation of advantage a ploppy action? i see it as more a matter of a work versus efficiency and yield question if one is using proper AP knowledge and theory with respect to the information being estimated.

 

[MangoJ]

The cut card effect is something different, and I don't think it effects "real" games.

What the cut card effect does says: if you enumerate each hands in a cut card game, hands above number X (where X depends on the number of decks and penetration) are -EV games.
What the cut card effect doesn't say: the last hands of a cut card game are -EV.

The cut card effect is a very crude way of counting. You don't count the face values of each card, but you count the number of cards needed to complete a hand (Actually you just count the hands, and the number of cards are given by the offered penetration). If a hand contains more cards (than the average hand), it contains - on the average - more of lower face value cards.
If a hand contains less cards, it contains more of higher value cards.

Hence if a given number of cards is drawn at the cut card , and you played more hands (more than X), then you have played more short-card hands and thus more higher value cards are already drawn from the shoe. This situation at the cut card corresponds to a "TC conversion" of this crude "cut card counting system" where you evaluate the remaining card distribution in the shoe. As the higher cards have already been played, the shoe is in negative TC, and thus this hand is -EV.


I'm not sure why people call it "cut card effect", as it is not a consequence of a cut card game. The cut card effect has the same quality as a "true count effect" (where negative TC hands have a negative EV, and positive TC hands have a positive EV).

 

[Gamblor]

hmm, so does the cut card effect and the way dealers feed the discard tray affect the nature of the randomness of the next pack to be dealt, yielding info that might be used in a similar way bridge players are apparently able to deduce from hand shuffled games? and isn't having information about the nature of the discards and the nature of the shuffle a good deal of what shuffle tracking is all about?
but whatever, is maybe the title of the OP a bit off, far as intuition goes?
seems more in the realm of estimation, to me. is estimation of advantage a ploppy action? i see it as more a matter of a work versus efficiency and yield question if one is using proper AP knowledge and theory with respect to the information being estimated.

Yes, there are these mythical figures called shuffle trackers, but they consciously track cards. What I was wondering if anyone ever got the sense that hand shuffled games are different than computer/asm/csm shuffled games. As I mentioned, except for that one incident with Bodog, never really felt the cards ran differently between the two. Think I saw a thread where someone felt that the ASM machines at their casino, the TC never fluctuated much - personally never observed this myself.

I'm fairly certain a hand shuffle is completely different than how a computer/ASM/CSM would should shuffle, and wondering if anyone might have noticed any differences. Maybe our subconscious is telling us something

Machines and computer programs do break and have bugs all the time - they are usually extremely complicated systems and all possible conditions and test cases cannot possibly verify if a computer program will work correctly in any and all situation. I've worked in the IT field for many years and can personally attest to that, bugs pop up in the weirdest situations. Just look at NASA, they probably have the most thorough quality assurance checks and methodologies, but they send defective software and hardware up all the time. Just speculating further if maybe the subconcious can pick up on these biases and defects better than the conscious mind.

 

[Gamblor]

Also, I found it extremely interesting that expert bridge players can intuit the difference between a hand shuffled and machine shuffled deck. Was thinking along the lines that maybe expert blackjack players, which would be many on this board, can tell the difference. Afterall many members of this board have played thousands and thousands of hands, and would be the best to note any difference between the two.

 

[aslan]

Random shuffing is a mystery to me. The latest report I read stated that for a deck to be considered randomly shuffled, it must be shuffled no less than seven times. Now, does that hold true when you begin with a random deck of cards as well? I suppose so, because it means that every possible combination of the 52 cards has an equal chance of occurring.

Now, I have seen shuffles that could not be considered "random" shuffles with the "seven shuffle" rule in mind, yet if we begin with a random deck, then how could it be any less shuffled than random, although maybe not random with respect to what was started with. It's all very confusing, if you ask me. Anyway, recently I have noticed that dealers wherever I play are going to great pains to shuffle beyond mere mortals' ability to track any given card or grouping of cards, IMHO. So I guess it's a moot point. But where machines are concerned, might we expect some regularity in the way a shoe transitions from one state (say, a very negative count throughout the playable cards) to another state (say, a very positive count throughout the dealt cards). It's all pretty stupid conjecture I suppose that there is any rhyme or reason to such things, but inquiring minds want to know, as they say.

 

[Canceler]

I'm not sure why people call it "cut card effect"

With the use of a cut card, a certain number of cards will be dealt. If most of those cards are small, there will be fewer hands dealt.

With no cut card, it is determined that a certain number of hands will be dealt, no matter how many cards are used up. The cut card effect disappears.

 

[aslan]

With the use of a cut card, a certain number of cards will be dealt. If most of those cards are small, there will be fewer hands dealt.

With no cut card, it is determined that a certain number of hands will be dealt, no matter how many cards are used up. The cut card effect disappears.

Makes sense to me.

 

[Gamblor]

Random shuffing is a mystery to me. The latest report I read stated that for a deck to be considered randomly shuffled, it must be shuffled no less than seven times. Now, does that hold true when you begin with a random deck of cards as well? I suppose so, because it means that every possible combination of the 52 cards has an equal chance of occurring.

Now, I have seen shuffles that could not be considered "random" shuffles with the "seven shuffle" rule in mind, yet if we begin with a random deck, then how could it be any less shuffled than random, although maybe not random with respect to what was started with. It's all very confusing, if you ask me. Anyway, recently I have noticed that dealers wherever I play are going to great pains to shuffle beyond mere mortals' ability to track any given card or grouping of cards, IMHO. So I guess it's a moot point. But where machines are concerned, might we expect some regularity in the way a shoe transitions from one state (say, a very negative count throughout the playable cards) to another state (say, a very positive count throughout the dealt cards). It's all pretty stupid conjecture I suppose that there is any rhyme or reason to such things, but inquiring minds want to know, as they say.

Yes randomness is a tricky concept to grasp. I guess the best mathematical definition is, given a string of bits is random, if you cannot create a program shorter than that string to create that string of bits, that string is random. This is just a grandiose and slippery way of not saying much, namely there is no pattern to those bits

Also, concerning shuffling, if you shuffle a deck 8 times with perfect interlacing, it will return to its exact original order.

In chaos theory, I think most everyone knows the basic tenet, that given a minute difference in initial condition, a chaotic system will will develop in a completely unpredictable manner. However, in chaos theory, there are things like strange attractors, that give rise to certain patterns even in a "chaotic" system. Well, a deck of random shuffled cards I would imagine is a chaotic system. Would be interesting if certain patterns emerged under certain conditions.

As you mentioned aslan, all speculative, but still interesting to think through.

 

[MangoJ]

However, in chaos theory, there are things like strange attractors, that give rise to certain patterns even in a "chaotic" system. Well, a deck of random shuffled cards I would imagine is a chaotic system. Would be interesting if certain patterns emerged under certain conditions.

This is wrong. Chaotic systems are systems with non-linear dynamics, where the output is highly sensitive to arbitrarily close inputs.

Traditional card shuffles are nothing like that. Imagine you have two identical decks A and B. You shuffle deck A and get a new deck A'. In deck B you make a minimal manipulation by switching two cards. Then perform the exact same shuffle (that means same interleaving of riffles, same cuts...) and get a new deck B'.

For a chaotic shuffle, A' and B' would be nothing alike. However, with all those riffles, strips, cuts (and even washes), B' is the same deck as A' expect those two cards are exchanged.
Traditional shuffles are not chaotic systems.


An at least non-linear shuffle would be look like this (whether it is chaotic or not is a different question): Peek at the first card. If it is a red card (hearts or diamonds) make a cut. If it is a black card (spades or clubs) make a riffle.
Then peek again the first cards and proceed with the same rules for a definite number of runs.

This shuffle would be non-linear: if you exchange a red and a black card before the shuffle, the outcome is totally different.

You can construct chaotic behaviour with an obvious "attractor": On club cards make an in riffle. On spades cards make an out riffle.
Now you have an attractor: After your shuffle is complete, you are highly likely to have a spades card on top, since the out riffle does not change the top card - and once you happen to have a spades card on top it stays there.