What is Random and How to Shuffle, or Why You Shouldn't Declump

[Swordfish1989]

There is a huge difference there. In your Double Nickle, you still maintain some knowledge of order of the deck. You know you will get X-X-X type of card in a certain order and I will agree that is cheating, as you are willing trying to gain a advantage. Declumping is just moving clumps you happen to see to one part of the deck to another, not caring where it goes. You then shuffle the deck not knowing where the card is.

Most people, including me are OCD when it comes to see same name cards together. Is there a point to it, maybe not but the same can be said about good luck charms being placed on the table during a game or people who have in irrational fears or superstitions, faith, etc. It does not have to make sense, just people do it.

If you feel your opponent is doing a poor job shuffling, then help them out and shuffle their deck or call over a judge to do it. I've also seen people in matches recorded by the Top Cut where players shuffling methods were very questionable. Everyone has different shuffling styles and some are bound to conflict with something. Just ask your opponent if you can shuffle their deck. Its not a big issue that players cant fix themselves.

Except when you're declumping you ARE arranging the pattern of your deck! What you're doing is no better than what I just did when I double nickle'd you. You're still creating a pattern - rather it's steady or not doesn't matter.

And a good luck charm doesn't affect the game. If I put a Charizard statue next to my deck it does not affect the game. The way that I shuffle and how many times I do it, though, DOES affect the game. The reason why these shuffling 'superstitions' exist is because you develop a way to shuffle that actually ends in you having a favorable distribution in your deck, so you think that shuffling X times in X manner is lucky, when in reality it's not luck at all - it's your actions being a direct catalyst to the result.

 

[vaporeon]

Except when you're declumping you ARE arranging the pattern of your deck! What you're doing is no better than what I just did when I double nickle'd you. You're still creating a pattern - rather it's steady or not doesn't matter.

And a good luck charm doesn't affect the game. If I put a Charizard statue next to my deck it does not affect the game. The way that I shuffle and how many times I do it, though, DOES affect the game. The reason why these shuffling 'superstitions' exist is because you develop a way to shuffle that actually ends in you having a favorable distribution in your deck, so you think that shuffling X times in X manner is lucky, when in reality it's not luck at all - it's your actions being a direct catalyst to the result.

So if a player play a Ultra Ball and move all possible choices to the front of the deck then they are cheating? After all they are creating a order, right? Declumping and double nickle are not the same things. You're comparing apples to bowling balls. Good Luck charms can affect the game. Ive had many players come to me and tell me their opponents charms created intimidating factors for them and threw them off their game. Intimidation is against the rules and if these charm do that to some players, then they should not be displayed during the game.

 

[vaporeon]

No that isn't how it works. It is not the victim's fault when the opponent presents a stacked deck.

This is how it works.

This is why it is a problem.

This is why it has to stop.

But you can stop it by shuffling their deck and or calling a judge and letting them know. Sure people may try to cheat but you can do something about it. Just because some one has different shuffling methods then you do does not mean they are cheating. Pokemon does not require that you go to school for 4 weeks to learn how to shuffle the way Poker pros do. All they require is that you randomize your deck the best way you can or ask for help when you cant.

 

[signofzeta]

Just sayin, what you think, and what actually happens is where things get ugly.

Let's say your deck just happen to have a even distribution after shuffling, or a distribution where all the energy, trainers, and pokemon are clumped together as a result of randomness, because if it is random, such things will happen.

You, or your opponent will think it isn't random, when it is truly random.


Likewise, you may do a shuffling technique, where you will never ever get a situation where certain orders of cards will never happen, such as when I riffle shuffle, or mash shuffle, I never ever could get all the energy to one end of the deck, or if I do hand over hand shuffle, I never could seem to remove clumps of cards. You think it is random, but in reality, it is not.

In the end, as long as you don't look at your deck while shuffling, and gain intelligence from it, then it is fine.

 

[NoPoke]

...... All they require is that you randomize your deck the best way you can or ask for help when you cant.

This too is insufficient. You do not get a "Free Pass" because it is the best that you can do.

 

[vaporeon]

That is correct. Players should not be looking at their decks while shuffling, or it defeats the purpose.

This too is wrong. You do not get a "Free Pass" because it is the best that you can do.

Its not a free pass. If your opponent is having a issue with doing correct shuffles then you as that players opponent should offer to shuffle their deck for them or call a judge over and have them shuffle it.

If either player still does not feel that either deck is sufficiently randomized, or if a player wishes to not offer his or her deck to an opponent for randomization, a judge must be called over to shuffle the deck(s) in question. No player is allowed to shuffle or cut after the judge’s shuffle. Players engaging in questionable shuffling methods may be subject to the Unsporting Conduct section of the Penalty Guidelines. Players are strongly encouraged to shuffle their opponent’s deck at Premier Events.

Q. I was playing with this guy and he rearranged the order of the cards in his deck prior to shuffle it, would this be allowed in a tournament?
A. Yes but you would have the right to shuffle it yourself or cut it as well if you were uncomfortable with his shuffling method.

Its also part of the SotG to help your fellow players out and maintain quality of the game. IF you see your opponents is having a hard time doing proper shuffles, then help them out or call a judge over or show them how to do a proper shuffle. If your opponent refuses to let you shuffle their deck after a search, the call a judge. If you dont agree with their shuffling methods, then call a judge over it shuffle their deck when it presented to you... if not, then call a judge. There are guidelines in place for this and if you choose not to use them, then its your fault if you get cheated against.

 

[NoPoke]

...
Let's say your deck just happen to have a even distribution after shuffling, or a distribution where all the energy, trainers, and pokemon are clumped together as a result of randomness, because if it is random, such things will happen.

You, or your opponent will think it isn't random, when it is truly random.

This may happen but will be unusual. It is generally bad policy to base an argument upon rare occurences. most of the time the rare occurences do not occur so most of the time the decision looks foolish.

Likewise, you may do a shuffling technique, where you will never ever get a situation where certain orders of cards will never happen, such as when I riffle shuffle, or mash shuffle, I never ever could get all the energy to one end of the deck, or if I do hand over hand shuffle, I never could seem to remove clumps of cards. You think it is random, but in reality, it is not.

In the end, as long as you don't look at your deck while shuffling, and gain intelligence from it, then it is fine.

If you never get a particular arrangement because your shuffle technique can never produce such an arrangement then you are not randomising sufficiently.

It is NOT sufficient that you do not look at your deck. Not looking is necessary if you wish to say that what you are doing is shuffling but not looking is not sufficient .

 

[SMP88]

So if a player play a Ultra Ball and move all possible choices to the front of the deck then they are cheating? After all they are creating a order, right? Declumping and double nickle are not the same things. You're comparing apples to bowling balls. Good Luck charms can affect the game. Ive had many players come to me and tell me their opponents charms created intimidating factors for them and threw them off their game. Intimidation is against the rules and if these charm do that to some players, then they should not be displayed during the game.

Now you're just making stuff up. Who is getting intimidated by a good luck charm sitting near me? Next you're going to tell me your opponent got intimidated by the color shirt you're wearing.

But you can stop it by shuffling their deck and or calling a judge and letting them know. Sure people may try to cheat but you can do something about it. Just because some one has different shuffling methods then you do does not mean they are cheating. Pokemon does not require that you go to school for 4 weeks to learn how to shuffle the way Poker pros do. All they require is that you randomize your deck the best way you can or ask for help when you cant.

You can stop cheating by calling a judge over when they present a stacked deck. It's not the fault of the opponent that a stacked deck is presented for a cut. Whether the opponent can shuffle is irrelevant. The rules state that presenting an insufficiently shuffled deck is grounds for a penalty, it doesn't matter whether the opponent can or should additionally shuffle the deck.

 

[signofzeta]

This may happen but will be unusual. It is generally bad policy to base an argument upon rare occurences. most of the time the rare occurences do not occur so most of the time the decision looks foolish.




If you never get a particular arrangement because your shuffle technique can never produce such an arrangement then you are not randomising sufficiently.

It is NOT sufficient that you do not look at your deck. Not looking is necessary if you wish to say that what you are doing is shuffling but not looking is not sufficient .

Do you know that your shuffling technique is fully randomizing your deck? You don't. In a truly random scenario, all distribution of cards can happen equally. This isn't the case. Certain distributions are more likely to happen than others. In this case, the deck clearly isn't raondom, but do I know that? No. Do I gain an advantage of certain card distributions not happening? No. Do I gain an advantage for looking at only one card, typically the bottom card, of the deck? No.

In the end, everyone is cheating, because in reality, their decks aren't truly random. What you think, and what actually happens are totally different.

People typically say the best way to shuffle is to do 7 riffles, which is true only for poker decks, but let's just say it is also true for pokemon decks. Due to the law of entropy, the more riffles I do, or in my case, I do mash shuffles, because I can't do riffles, the more random the deck will be. I do 12 mash shuffles, look at the distribution, do 12 more mash shuffles, look at the distribution, and I have been doing it many times, and I can't seem to get certain distributions. Heck, I don't even know if it is a lower probability of getting certain distributions, or if I haven't gotten to certain distributions yet.

In the end, if the deck is "random" enough, it is good enough for me. There is no reason to make a deck fully random when it is impossible to do so.

As I said before, if you shuffle one way, you are more likely to obtain certain distributions of cards, while if you shuffle another way, you get different distributions of cards, and the starting order of your deck does have an affect on what the order of your cards will be after the shuffle.

For example, how many riffles does it take to make the order of your deck exactly the same as the way you found it? In true randomness, there is a chance that the order of your cards will be the same as before you shuffled it. In reality, such things won't happen, unless you riffle it so many times.

In such cases, not looking at your deck is sufficient, why? How can anyone formulate strategies based on the next few cards of their deck if they don't know what the next few cards are?

Maybe they should enact a rule where there is a 30 minute shuffle period, where the person has to shuffle 30 minutes non stop using well known shuffling techniques only, but as we all know, that kind of rule is stupid, and people want to play, not shuffle. In the end, people do all this declumping, or sorting, or what not, is because their shuffling technique is bad, and they seem to get unfavorable distributions of cards every time, in which case, their deck is random, no matter how favorable the distribution is. It would take them much much longer do do their way of shuffling.

Now do you think this method of shuffling is cheating?

You take a deck, and cut it around the middle, so you have 2 piles. You will also need a dice for this.

You roll the dice, and whatever number it lands on, you take that many cards from the top of the first pile, and place it as a new pile. You roll again, and do the same thing as the other pile, and place the cards on top of the third pile until the cards in one pile run out. If there are no more cards on one pile, you put the rest of the cards, without reordering the remaining pile, and place that on top. You split your deck near the middle again. You repeat the procedure 7 to 12 times.

If someone would see this, they would no doubt call this cheating, but the way you are placing the cards is no different from a certain shuffling technique you know and love, just more time consuming. The one difference is that one way is super slow, and easy to keep track of which cards end up being which, while the other way is fast, and is harder to keep track of which card is which, even though the outcome will end up being the same.

If you want true randomness, throw your deck in the air, and with a light blocking blindfold, pick up all the cards and place them in a pile, and get the judge to make sure all the cards are oriented the correct way. True randomness.

 

[NoPoke]

The hand over hand "shuffle" is not a shuffle! All it does is rotate the cards in the same way that a cut does.

It is pointless to base any argument upon a single permutation. It is pointless to base an argument upon even one of several hundred specific distributions. 60! is a very big number. Even allowing for all the triples and quads of cards that are played the number of distinct permutations is huge.

This was why I put up some numbers early in the thread. To show how common or otherwise pairs, triples and quads are in decks. Though I posted the actual results for each of four simulations the numbers will not be exact as a mere 10,000 samples of four alternate decks were examined. 10,000 samples is enough to typically get the errors down to the order of 1%.

From the results I believe I am justified in my belief that after a sufficient shuffle I can expect pairs to be common in pokemon decks and triples and quads uncommon. I don't have a problem with declumping for a variety of reasons that I've posted in the other threads which I do not wish to repeat again. But I do expect any such declumping to be brief and not the main focus of the search. If you tell me you are declumping pairs then if it takes more than a few seconds I will ask you not to do that in future. If your shuffles don't typically yield distributions that contain pairs and lack triples and quads then you are not shuffling sufficiently.

I advise players to practice shuffling: not just practice the process but to critically examine the results of their randomisation technique.

 

[signofzeta]

The hand over hand "shuffle" is not a shuffle! All it does is rotate the cards in the same way that a cut does.

It is pointless to base any argument upon a single permutation. It is pointless to base an argument upon even one of several hundred specific distributions. 60! is a very big number. Even allowing for all the triples and quads of cards that are played the number of distinct permutations is huge.

This was why I put up some numbers early in the thread. To show how common or otherwise pairs, triples and quads are in decks. Though I posted the actual results for each of four simulations the numbers will not be exact as a mere 10,000 samples of four alternate decks were examined. 10,000 samples is enough to typically get the errors down to the order of 1%.

From the results I believe I am justified in my belief that after a sufficient shuffle I can expect pairs to be common in pokemon decks and triples and quads uncommon. I don't have a problem with declumping for a variety of reasons that I've posted in the other threads which I do not wish to repeat again. But I do expect any such declumping to be brief and not the main focus of the search. If you tell me you are declumping pairs then if it takes more than a few seconds I will ask you not to do that in future. If your shuffles don't typically yield distributions that contain pairs and lack triples and quads then you are not shuffling sufficiently.

I advise players to practice shuffling: not just practice the process but to critically examine the results of their randomisation technique.

Dude, that's not random. Random means any distribution can happen. If you think that shuffling results in a distribution that should contain triples, quads, or pairs, that isn't random at all. My mash shuffle technique will more likely create pairs, triples, or quadruples, and I do think it is random, but what my brain says is totally opposite as to what the distribution truly is.

Random means that no pairs, triples, and quads can happen, and it also means 4 quads in a row can happen as well. This is why MTG rules state the deck should be sufficiently randomized, and not fully randomized, because no matter what you do, you can't make your deck fully random, unless you do the whole throw your deck in the air, and play 60 card pickup while blindfolded.

There are two sides of the spectrum. On one side, there are people who clearly intend to cheat, and do really crappy shuffles, and as a result, the deck would be clearly not random. Then there's the other side, where there are people who nitpick that someone didn't fully randomize their deck, and the deck and use their own false sense as to what is random to dictate how others should shuffle, and would call a judge if the opponent would gain some sort of, what they think is an advantage, but really isn't, such as looking at the bottom card of the deck, which end up anywhere after the deck would be cut.

I prefer the people in the middle of this spectrum, the people who follow the rules, but at the same time, not strip away from the fun of others just because they didn't go to shuffling school.

Here is another thing. The less you think about the order of your deck, the more random you think it is, even though the deck is probably not random, or could be random, we don't know. The ones who cheat, and call out on opponents as cheaters are those who think about the order of their own deck, if they are the cheater, or the order of their opponent's deck, if they think their opponent is cheating. In a fair and fun environment, during shuffling, it is better to think less, and play more.

 

[NoPoke]

random comes with statistics. properties. expectations. While you cannot know what a particular outcome will be you can know the statistics. I can know that pairs are common and that triples and quads are not. More than that I checked just to make sure that what I believed was in fact correct.

 

[signofzeta]

random comes with statistics. properties. expectations. While you cannot know what a particular outcome will be you can know the statistics. I can know that pairs are common and that triples and quads are not. More than that I checked just to make sure that what I believed was in fact correct.

As I said, there are people in 2 spectrums. Those who take away fairness, and those who take away fun.

Those who take away fairness are those cheaters who obviously have no intention to make their deck in any way random, or even close to being random.

Those who take way fun are those nitpickers who nitpick on someone because their deck isn't truly fully random, based on that person's standard of random, when it is given that it is impossible. This also applies to people who think that the opponent is gaining an advantage, ahem, accidentally looking at the corner of one of 60 cards which would end up anywhere, and calling them out, while it is clearly no advantage. Oh, I saw one card in the bottom of my deck during shuffling, and after cutting and it ended up somewhere in the middle. I guess I can formulate strategies from that card being in the middle... NOT!

In the end, people want to play, and shuffling isn't playing. People who think about playing aren't thinking about shuffilng, and the less you think about shuffling, the less time you waste on trying to cheat, or call out on others for cheating, whether they are cheating or not.

I stopped using hand over hand and started the mash shuffle, which is technically the same as the riffle shuffle, because it gives me distributions where all the energy aren't in one place. There are no two ways to mash shuffle, or riffle shuffle, and the way I shuffle is no different from somebody else who riffles or mashes. In a truly random scenario, there will be a chance that someone gets an all energy hand, and have the next 5 draws be energy, assuming they have 15 energies in their deck. It is unlikely, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

 

[Pikabruce]

These were some of the panel's recent comments on The Top Cut, when discussing the videos of Canadian Nationals:

Before this, there's been a lot of discussion about declumping. And this seems like some sort of natural progression past that. Or declumping where it worked perfectly. The reason why there wasn't that much of a deal with declumping before is because people just shuffled afterwards. And then people were like, "Well it's not actually cheating, because nothing is happening, because people are randomizing their deck." But I want to make something clear, that when you declump you have the intention of cheating. And for me that's the same exact thing, and you shouldn't do it. I know some people don't realize, and after they declump they shuffle correctly, but you shouldn't do it. And if you declump anyways, even if you shuffle correctly afterwards, you had the intention of manipulating your deck, in a way, to your advantage. And that's cheating, or the intention to cheat. And nobody should do either of those things.

I think declumping opened up the can of worms. "I can declump? What if I just shuffle a couple times afterwards?" They're trying to take it as far as they can. Pokemon's going to have to step in, smack some hands.

 

[Glumanda]

Yeah, I was watching this too and I was applauding in front of my computer, when Ben Potter said that bolded part because it is so spot on.

 

[signofzeta]

Do you know what would be a dick move? Let's say you can't shuffle properly. You offer the judge or opponent to shuffle your deck for you. Neither the judge nor opponent accepts. So you do your crappy shuffle, or perhaps declump and do a crappy shuffle. Because of this insufficient shuffle, the judge DQ's you.

 

[NoPoke]

straw man argument FTW?

 

[signofzeta]

straw man argument FTW?

No, I'm just saying. If such a situation happens, what do you do? Not everybody is a super human shuffler.

 

[Mekkah]

Get a different judge to do it for you, tell the Head Judge about your opponent and the first judge, and ask someone to teach you how to shuffle.

 

[Glumanda]

Yeah, if you have a problem shuffling due to some kind of physical limitation, event staff will do everything possible to assist you. Some years ago we had a German Nationals a six-year-old kid who broke her hand some days before the tournament but wanted to play. We got her a shuffling person (I asked a mother I know from local tournaments) for assistance.

The thing is: The scenario of the "evil judge" is like complete nonsense. I mean, by going to the judge and stating you have a problem with shuffling, you:
1. Recognize there is a problem
2. Try something to resolve the problem
(and a good judge should be happy to assist you)

This is much better than
1. Recognize there is a problem
2. Let the problem persist perfectly aware that there is a problem

As an example: Let us assume you broke a sleeve during play and bring this to the attention of the opponent and a judge the moment it happens, there will no problem. But if you wait three rounds, and during a deck check you say: "Yeah, I know I broke that sleeve three round ago, but had no replacement sleeves", you have a problem...

But in the end, I agree with Mekkah: If your shuffling is bad, you should learn to shuffle well, unless there is a limitation which hinders you (Juniors and Seniors would of course be held to another standard than Masters).