The word "should" should not be in any part of the word random. If something should happen with random, then it isn't random...
No, you shouldn't expect 40-60 heads. 50/50 odds offer no guarantee whatsoever. The only thing that you 'should' expect is that a flip result with either be heads or tails. You 'should' never expect any result - that's what gets gamblers in trouble!
What? In your pokemon career you have only ever shuffled ONCE???
And again with a sufficient shuffle lots of things not only should happen but do happen. Further I have never said that a lack of pairs means cheating. If a player shuffles sufficiently then they should expect to see pairs. Very different statement!
In random of course I can have expectations!
but since you say I can't then you will take a $10 bet on a single trial of 100 dice rolls? I win if the number of heads is between 40 and 60? After all it is a single result and anything is possible in a single result? On second thoughts I'm giving you most of the numbers so I pay you $10 and you pay me $20.
It is random so I may lose, that is part of my expectation too.
So when is before shuffling? When are you allowed to look? If you know that you are not good at shuffling or that you technique needs to be improved how can you tell without looking?
You must be using some strange definition of "random"....I also say that achieving full randomness is impossible, and that people should stop wasting time trying to make their own deck or their opponent's deck random. You can't....
No. From either this thread, or some other thread, you said that the deck should have pairs of 2 clumps, or something like that, if it doesn't, you should shuffle again. That is what I heard. I am saying that just because something that is unlikely to happen, happens, it doesn't mean the result should be discarded. I don't think you seem to understand this.
I quote this again. The first paragraph is what I call a delay of game. I am so going to take your advice. I shuffle, look at my deck to see if I have your "sweet spot" distribution. It doesn't. I shuffle again. I look at the deck to see if it has the distribution. It does. Since I looked at my cards, I have to shuffle YET AGAIN. Now I check if it has the distribution. It does. I already looked at my cards so I have to shuffle again. Does this make any sense to you?
That may be what you heard, but it was not what was said. What was said, is that the next time you do a deck search, if you don't see some sort of clump somewhere, you should shuffle more thoroughly. It's not (just) a sign that your last shuffle was bad and needs to be redone, it's a sign that your shuffling in general is bad and you should feel bad (and shuffle better from then on).
And again, that is not what was said. You should not look and see if your shuffle was good enough after shuffling; you should consider, when possible, whether there is a pattern of bad shuffling, and if there is, improve your technique.
You must be using some strange definition of "random".
As pertains to a deck, random means "lack of any prearranged order". Shuffling enough to obliterate any prearranged order (where "prearranged order" pertains to the order of the cards at the beginning of the shuffle) is not impossible (or even difficult) and is not wasting time.
...and how would you know that without looking at your deck after shuffling? You can't. By the time you get a chance to look at it, the order of the cards would have already been different.
If you don't look at your deck at some point after you shuffle but before you shuffle again, then you don't know if that particular shuffle was good enough. Nobody said you had to look at the result of every shuffle. The point isn't to see whether any given shuffle was good enough, it's to see if you shuffle well enough generally. You don't need every result to consider that, you can just use the ones you have.
Not that anyone cares but the minimum number of riffles from Prof Diaconis's work is Ceil(3/2*log_base2(deck_size))
If this post is off-topic, just LMK and I'll delete it.
I'm honestly curious about something. What exactly do you consider to be a "good" shuffling technique? Here's the pre-game technique that I've been using for years without incident...
1) 5-pile. 1-2-3-4-5, until I hit 60. This is mostly done to ensure I've got 60 cards.
2) Take piles 3 and 5, and mash shuffle them at least 7 times (usually closer to 12 or 15, depending on how much time I've got). Call this Pile 6.
3) Take piles 1 and 4 and mash shuffle them at least 7 times (usually closer to 12 or 15). Call this Pile 7.
4) Take Piles 2 and 7 and mash shuffle them at least 7 times (usually closer to 10 or 12). Call this Pile 8.
5) Take Piles 6 and 8 and mash shuffle them at least 7 times. Continue mashing until opponent presents their deck.
6) Present.
This all usually takes about a minute or two
Is this a sufficiently shuffled deck? Or do I need to change my technique?
During games, I usually mash about 7-10 times after a search where I know my next deck manipulation is not going to be a Search. Like, if I'm going to Level, then Ultra, I generally won't shuffle between the two in order to save a bit of time. But if I'm going to Level then Juniper, I'll shuffle after the Level.
The whole reason I mash instead of riffle is that a mash takes significantly less time for me than a riffle. I can mash about 7-10 times in the time it would take me to riffle, and the randomization is close enough between the two that I feel additional mashes make up for the slightly worse randomization. BTW, Mash shuffle.
If my assumptions are wrong, just LMK, and I'll change them.