Cheating from Worlds Contestants

[Yuna]

You mistake my meaning. When I say you "cannot expect" it is not the same as saying you "can expect not to." If you don't declump it increases your chances of drawing an Eelektrik after a Tynamo for example. In such a way de-clumping may actually create less desirable starting hands or draws. This is why I suggest pile shuffling as a method of declumping. In the process you seperate every card from the card next to it. You may seperate a copy of card A from card B and then place a second copy of card B atop card A but you won't know.

Alternatively, during any given game you may play (or place in discard) card A followed by card B. This could be two parts of the same evolution line, a basic and an energy card, a basic and a tool card or two complimentary trainers. If you don't declump, the next time you play you may draw into card B first (since your cards are now face-down) and deduce that your chance at drawing card A is great than any other card.

Now, this is still a gambling matter. I just think that pile shuffling is a fair way to blindly de-clump your deck so that you have no chance to deduce card order. Intentionally looking at your cards and arranging them so there is an even distribution (or groupings of different cards you want next to eachother) is more like making "good clumps" than actually de-clumping.

I think people may have differing ideas about what is and isn't cheating. However, no matter how you feel about a certain practice, if there is not an actual rule against it then it's not cheating. The official tournament rules state: "Each player’s deck is expected to be fully randomized at the start of each game and during the game, as card effects require." It doesn't matter what state your deck is in before the game. It's not against the rules to intentionally stack your deck to any precise order if you wish. Even if we think it should be against the rules it's probably not worth policing. Make it a point to shuffle your opponent's deck if you feel they haven't done it right.

Just to be clear, I think stacking the deck before a game is poor sportsmanship even if it's not illegal.

RM

I'm sorry that I misinterpretated your post, but I still think that you (and many others in this thread) got the whole concept of "random" wrong. Let me illustrate with an example:

Look at Steven Mao in the video that Pooka mentioned on page 1. Before the game, he looks at his deck and declumps, and then shuffles. Imagine that in a parallell universe, another Steven Mao doesn't declump, but shuffles in the exact same way. Which Steven Mao would have the least possibility of drawing, say, 2 Juniper next to each other in the following game?

a) The Steven Mao that declumped
b) The Steven Mao that didn't declump

If you chose alternative a, you got the concept of random wrong. The answer is that, if your deck is properly shuffled to be fully randomized (which it should be - you even quoted the official tournament rules), the probability should be exactly the same for a declumped vs. non-declumped deck. But since Steven did declump, he must have thought that this lowered the possibility of 2 Junipers next to each other, why else would he do it? In other words, he intentionally lessened the odds of getting 2 certain cards next to each other, which is not compatible with having a "fully randomized deck". If he thought that his shuffling method (after the declumping) would be sufficient to fully randomize his deck, then there would be absolutely no point in the declumping, just a waste of time.

You could argue that "it is impossible to reach true randomness" with standard shuffling techniques, but as I wrote in my previous post, I believe that it, for all practical purposes, is. Therefore, if you do declump, ask yourself why you are doing it. If you think that it lessens the odds of certain card sequences, you really are admitting to the fact that you don't shuffle properly (which is cheating).

On a side note, I don't think that pile shuffling is the same as declumping. I believe that if you're doing it properly, you might as well clump as declump cards, and so it is just a great shuffling method (which also allows you to count the cards). However, if you do believe that a pile-shuffled deck has fewer "clumps" than a non pile-shuffled, then you're not shuffling properly afterwards, as per my above reasoning.

 

[sdrawkcab]

I don't care what your position is on declumping, if you're going through your deck mid-game and see 10 energy back to back to back, you're going to declump them.

 

[Pooka]

I don't care what your position is on declumping, if you're going through your deck mid-game and see 10 energy back to back to back, you're going to declump them.

Actually, I'm just going to shuffle instead of wasting the time doing that.

 

[NoPoke]

Originally Posted by sdrawkcab
I don't care what your position is on declumping, if you're going through your deck mid-game and see 10 energy back to back to back, you're going to declump them.

Actually, I'm just going to shuffle instead of wasting the time doing that.

Pooka, I hope you'd photograph it first because given what I've seen of your shuffling I wouldn't believe it could happen.

sdrawkcaB could have posed a much more appropriate question if he had asked what you will do if you see three Darkrais all stuck together? Here the curvature of the cards is going to tend to keep them together even with several riffles. I expect that both you and Ness would still just shuffle because you know how your shuffling performs and know that it will clear that kind of sticky clump.

 

[tutti]

I don't care what your position is on declumping, if you're going through your deck mid-game and see 10 energy back to back to back, you're going to declump them.

I'm not. If there are enough cards in the deck that ten energies in a row is strange, then a good riffle is going to do the declumping for you. Doing it manually is a waste of time and, if you're caught, goodwill.

 

[sdrawkcab]

I hope you'd photograph it first because given what I've seen of your shuffling I wouldn't believe it could happen.

sdrawkcaB could have posed a much more appropriate question if he had asked what you will do if you see three Darkrais all stuck together? Here the curvature of the cards is going to tend to keep them together even with several riffles. I expect that both you and Ness would still just shuffle because you know how your shuffling performs and know that it will clear that kind of sticky clump.

You've seen me shuffle?

10 was an exaggeration, but I did have 8 next to each other at nats =(

That's what I get for playing matrix energy....

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I'm not sure if this was covered earlier in the thread; the junior who was dq'd was he dq'd for cheating?

---------- Post added 08/22/2012 at 03:39 PM ----------

I'm not. If there are enough cards in the deck that ten energies in a row is strange, then a good riffle is going to do the declumping for you. Doing it manually is a waste of time and, if you're caught, goodwill.

If I get caught? Nothing happens....I'd straight up tell my opponent "This is unbelievable, I have 10 energy next to each other, hold on, let me declump....." It takes all of two seconds to do....

 

[tutti]

You've seen me shuffle?

If I get caught? Nothing happens....I'd straight up tell my opponent "This is unbelievable, I have 10 energy next to each other, hold on, let me declump....." It takes all of two seconds to do....

And if your opponent dislikes declumping, then you just lost some goodwill.

 

[QD4U]

Declumping is just a waste of everyone's time, and might upset some players. (and rightfully so; it is fair to assume that a person declumping might in fact be stacking his deck).

I can't believe there's even discussion on this. But then I remembered where I am

 

[Griftiest]

I think we should be focusing on shuffles that may be non random.

Take the hindu shuffle. You grab the deck and pull it off in small piles until you've taken the whole deck. This pretty much just puts cards that were on the bottom of your deck on the top, which is not random.

http://www.twitch.tv/tommartell/b/329228047

Here's a video of the cheat in action. Basically, what happens, is the Taiwanese player plays a card that lets him put a card in his opponents hand on the bottom of his deck. The Puerto Rican player plays a card that lets him shuffle his deck. He does mash shuffle, but never really moves the bottom card. Then he does the Hindu to put the card on top of his deck. Luckily, his opponent shuffles his deck. Honestly, after seeing this sort of thing happen, we shouldn't allow the player to cut there own deck after a shuffle. How hard would it be to just follow the card with your eyes and then cut to where it is?

If your opponent does the hindu shuffle at any point, always suspect something.

 

[Otaku]

If I get caught? Nothing happens....I'd straight up tell my opponent "This is unbelievable, I have 10 energy next to each other, hold on, let me declump....." It takes all of two seconds to do....

First, from now on all your opponent's will be timing you; this is not a good time to exaggerate. De-clumping 10 Energy cards in two seconds is amazing... unless you meant to just break it into two smaller chunks. I really don't know how I'd respond to this. Part of me would be excited, because I'll be honest I view "declumping" in a negative light, a sign of ignorance.

However I also view it with suspicion, since it is a "slippery slope" and it is hard to know when to draw the line. I mean if you can declump 10 Energy in two seconds, how much full fledged stacking could you do with that time, or a few seconds more? :lol:

In fact, playing Matrix Energy would make me more suspicious; if you dislike cards getting stuck together, and the curvature of the card affects things (as others stated earlier with Darkrai EX)... well tell me, if someone does something that should promote cards "clumping", then takes an action to counter it in the match, it just seems odd.

Note that gives me no grounds for accusations, just elicits ill will and suspicion.

 

[Tapin]

Pooka, I hope you'd photograph it first because given what I've seen of your shuffling I wouldn't believe it could happen.

Well, sure it could... there's about a 3628800-in-8.3209871e+81 chance, I'm surprised it hasn't happened already

 

[tutti]

So you're saying it happens 9 out of 10 times?

 

[vaporeon]

Actually, I'm just going to shuffle instead of wasting the time doing that.

Would that not take the same amount of time? If I saw 3 Darkrai together, I take like half a second to move them to another part of the deck then continue my search, then shuffle and offer to my opponent to shuffle and or cut.

You see 3 darkrai together, choose not to move them (you have the choice to move them, you just don't take it) and take more time shuffling them to achieve what you think is random and offer to your opponent to shuffle and or cut.

In the last thread I though we all came to a conclusion that time was not the issue as much as gaining an unfair advantage. I still don't know what advantage is gained. its like the player who searches their deck to see what cards are prized during their Ultra Ball search. Thats info gain that the opponent does not have. Also that search takes a lot of time from the round.

When I search my deck, I don't check to see whats prized so that would mean that my opponent would have an unfair advantage against me because they know where their resources are all game. I can also that the choice given to me to search my deck to see whats prized but I don't, so I can't complain. I also have the choice to netdeck but I don't, so I can't complain.

All in all, declumping does not take nearly as long as that first prize search. That's a total of 4 minutes a round or game gone from the over all match time because of a prize search. Declumping is just moving the cards around and adds like maybe 2 seconds to the search.

Declumping is not the issue. The issues are those who choice to order their deck before a game and pile shuffle the perfect hand. I've seen it happen. The universal end all to this is to just shuffle your opponents deck. We not need a second thread about this.

 

[vaporeon]

Declumping is just a waste of everyone's time, and might upset some players. (and rightfully so; it is fair to assume that a person declumping might in fact be stacking his deck).

I can't believe there's even discussion on this. But then I remembered where I am

Declumping adds like 2 seconds to the shuffle time. That times can also be accounted for.

 

[Ness]

You see 3 darkrai together, choose not to move them (you have the choice to move them, you just don't take it) and take more time shuffling them to achieve what you think is random and offer to your opponent to shuffle and or cut.

Whether or not you "declump" your deck doesn't change how much shuffling is needed to randomize it. You seem to have this idea that since you "declumped," you were at least partially randomizing the deck, that this "declumping" is a substitute for some shuffling. Your deck is no more or less random after "declumping" cards as it is after "declumping." The only difference is one of these orders will produce more favorable draws, on average, if upheld.

I'm confident my next example is persuasive:

You see 10 energy cards together. Your mindset is that you'd rather declump because it would take a ton of shuffling to break apart that pattern. So instead, you declump. Now, you don't feel obligated to complete that lengthy shuffle.

But wait a minute, why would you have to shuffle less after declumping? Does it actually take less shuffles to randomize a deck because you've artificially moved cards around? No, once you've seen a deck, it is no longer random, regardless of the order of the cards. Whatever amount of shuffling was necessary to randomize the deck when there were 10 energy cards next to each other is still required even if you moved those energy cards around.

The reason you want to shuffle less after declumping (you may not even consciously realize this) is because you are satisfied with the distribution of cards in your deck, and you want to maintain that order. We have a tendency to view unpredictable patterns as more random than noticeable patterns. (I remember reading that if you ask someone to choose a random number between 1-1000, he or she will rarely choose a number that ends in zero. Instead, people perceive numbers like "637" as more random than "600.") And of course, trying to create an artificial order of cards in your deck isn't fair.

Declumping is not the issue. The issues are those who choice to order their deck before a game and pile shuffle the perfect hand. I've seen it happen. The universal end all to this is to just shuffle your opponents deck. We not need a second thread about this.

"Declumping" and stacking a deck are in reality the same thing, but different degrees. Both are attempting to do the same thing: to create an artificial order of cards that is more likely to produce good draws. There's a reason "declumping" isn't an actual term in card games outside of these forums. If we went into a poker forum, or perhaps another respectable TCG forum, it would just be called "stacking." (I can only imagine the reaction to watching a poker dealer break apart the aces in a deck before performing a light shuffle. "Imagine how unrandom it would be if the flop had three aces," he explains.)

 

[Jaeger]

If a player does a significant shuffle wouldn't really not matter weather they declump or not?

 

[psychup2034]

If a player does a significant shuffle wouldn't really not matter weather they declump or not?

Of course, but the key word is "significant." There's really no time to do the 6 riffles suggested by Trefethen after every search. Moreover, it seems like a lot of players aren't very good at riffle shuffling, and some even choose to use other shuffling methods.

As an example, it would take over 10 minutes of Hindu shuffling to achieve the same level of randomness as 6 riffles.

 

[LibertyFigter]

There seems to be a bit of a misconception floating around related to pile shuffling. People are essentially taking for granted that pile shuffling is a form of declumping, just a more universally acceptable form. In reality, this isn't the case. Pile shuffling is not a form of declumping, declumping, rather, is a form of shuffling.

That sounds weird at first, but hear (read) me out. "Shuffling" simply means to alter the order of cards in a deck. However, PTCG rules do not dictate that a deck must be sufficiently "shuffled" before the game begins and after search, but require a deck to be sufficiently "randomized." This is the crux of the issue: does declumping assist in randomization, and, after declumping, can a deck, within the reasonable time limits of organized play, be sufficiently randomized? I think two others, Ness and Otaku, are really hitting the nail on the head with their posts, and I will expand a bit here, acknowledging that they have said some of this before.

Declumping is the act of a player consciously rearranging a deck for a direct draw advantage. This reordering does not increase randomness. Thus, at best, declumping is no help to a player, as the player must, according to PTCG rules, randomize their deck after. This post-declump randomization, if it is true randomization, simply reverses the declump, making the chance of clumps existing equal to what it was before the declump.

Thus, at best, declumping changes absolutely nothing about deck draw. However, most likely, declumping gives a player distinct card advantage and promotes weak, illegal randomization.

 

[platinumwaiter]

People declump to make the deck more "random" amd more evenly distributed. What people are trying ti say here is that declumping is a waste of time and that random =/= even distribution.

 

[LibertyFigter]

People declump to make the deck more "random" amd more evenly distributed. What people are trying ti say here is that declumping is a waste of time and that random =/= even distribution.

Yes, evenly distributing cards is about as ordered as you can get.