Cheating from Worlds Contestants

[deashira]

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.

As stated previously, seeing the order of cards in the deck does not make it not random. However, the purpose of randomization is not randomization for its own sake. Decks are randomized to prevent the player from knowing the order of cards and that is why you must shuffle after every search.

"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.)

Now, there is no real definition for the word "clump" as used here, but I think there are two different types of clumps. First, there are clumps of same-type cards (such as a group of 4 Fire Energy). Second, there are clumps of complimentary cards (such as a complete evolution line). Given a less than perfect randomization, de-clumping type one may improve your hand while de-clumping type two may degrade it.

Here's the trouble: there will not always be a perfectly randomized deck. I have been playing TCGs for 18 years and I still can't perform a riffle shuffle. I'm sure I'm not the only one who fails at that skill. Some players simply won't do it because of risk to card condition. Other forms of shuffling may be less randomizing (though I'm not completely convinced) and you can't check for randomization without looking at the cards. Obviously that would defeat the purpose.

Pile shuffling de-clumps your deck without telling you what order the cards are in (unless you've stacked the deck as mentioned earlier). This way, even if you do not perform a perfect shuffle you won't know what cards are likely to be next to others and that preserves the spirit of the rule.

RM

 

[signofzeta]

Without sleeves, I could only do the overhand shuffle, as I can't do riffle shuffles.

I normally do "pile shuffles" with brand new theme decks, the ones before HS Undaunted, where all the energies are grouped together. I then never do the pile shuffle ever again, as I feel that it is useless.

I find that with Magic the Gathering, and brand new precons, where all the basic lands are grouped together, I would have to overhand shuffle until I am blue in the face before I get a "good" hand, so doing the "pile shuffle" beforehand saves me some effort. I mean, just have 24 energies and 24 pokemon, and 12 trainers and do the overhand shuffle until you feel it is randomized when the deck starts out with all the energies, pokemon, and trainers grouped together. You'd find that the distribution of energies would still be clumped together, and you'd have to overhand shuffle again and again and again.

That is, until I discovered sleeves and mash shuffling. I never had to pile shuffle ever again. The first "mash" basically interweaves the energies and other cards together, so it would sort of be like pile shuffling, then you mash them again and again. It is probably the quickest way, along with riffle shuffle, to achieve randomness.

You can still achieve randomness with pile shuffling. Just have all cards face down, and do the pile shuffle over and over, while adding cards to each pile randomly, well not really random, but the order in which you add the card to each pile cannot be a patterned cycle, such as 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and then repeat. It is probably a slow shuffling technique anyway.

I feel that the idea of shuffling isn't about randomization. I think randomizing requires a machine to do so. The idea of shuffling involves making the player not remember where a certain card is in the deck. Therefore shuffling techniques must be used in order for the player to not be able to track where one single card goes in the deck after the shuffle. Pile shuffling in a way allows the player to sort of track where each card will be, provided that player knows the initial conditions of the deck before the shuffle.

Basically, achieving true randomness is impossible. You need to shuffle for a very long time, if you don't know how to do the riffle shuffle and you don't use sleeves. As such, other methods like the overhand or hindu, is used in such a way that it does not achieve true randomness, but changes the order of the cards just enough so that you cannot know the exact order of the cards after the shuffle. The only time I think it is cheating is if you shuffled in such a way that you can track where each card goes.

Another reason as to why any shuffling technique never achieves true randomization is this. There has never been a case where someone shuffled and the end result is all energies on one side of the deck. Random means that such a thing could happen, but it never did.

 

[LibertyFigter]

Pile shuffling de-clumps your deck without telling you what order the cards are in (unless you've stacked the deck as mentioned earlier). This way, even if you do not perform a perfect shuffle you won't know what cards are likely to be next to others and that preserves the spirit of the rule.

RM

Pile shuffling has just as much chance to clump as it does to declump. This is because the player is incapable of favoring a pattern. However, in declumping randomness IS reduced, as the player actively reorders cards favoring a specific pattern: even distribution.

 

[vaporeon]

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" 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.)

What I was trying to say is there are 2 kinds of shuffles. One is where you did not pay attention to them and the other is where know the order during the shuffle. Like you said with the 10 energy, you would normally shuffle more to spread them apart but the shuffling is normally longer because you know those energy are clumped together. Both methods achieve the same goal but one takes longer but that would be on the side that did not declump.

After reading what you posted, I now know what your argument is. I fully agree with you that a declump is NOT a substitute for a full shuffle. Sorry it took me this long to realize that. I have seen players declump but not fully shuffle their deck and that is where you see the issue.

 

[vaporeon]

Just so we are on the same note, I consider a 'clump' when I see 2 cards of the same name together. If I look through my deck and see 2 Articunos together, I will move one of them. That's important to me because I only run 2 Articunos in my deck.

What I consider a 'full' shuffle is when a player does a few shuffles to their deck. Like at least 3 shuffles. That's fine for me. What Ness is saying is its okay to declump but you have to sufficiently shuffle your deck. The problem is the number of shuffles both players can agree on. Like I said, I'm fine with 3 but if my opponent wants me to do it more, then I will or they can shuffle it as well.

Also. the order of the deck, once you see it is no longer random. To me, I can take the order of my deck when I'm looking at it and move the cards around because that order no longer matters. If you move those Articunos or that 10 energy clump and go to shuffle your deck, you are going to have a more 'efficient' shuffle. I mean, we pile shuffle to declump AND then we shuffle the decks afterwards. Decluming to me followed by a shuffle is a less extreme pile shuffle and it should be allowed. just remember, you have the right to shuffle and cut your opponents deck.

 

[SHPanda]

Since this is has turned into a declumping thread I will drop some knowledge on people. The issue it seems to devolve into is "If I declump, it doesn't hurt anyone so why shouldn't I be allowed to to it?" Well for starters it wastes people's time because you still have to shuffle properlly afterwards, which probably won't happen, and then you are basically saying "my opponent can shuffle my deck for me." It also looks super shady when someone declumps. You personally may not find anything wrong with it but it looks like you are doing something shady. It is sorta like walking into a bank with a bunch of your friends with ski masks on. Are you trying to rob the bank? No, your intentions may be to simply deposit some money. Do you look like you are about to rob a bank? Yes, any reasonable person will say yes to that. So the next time you get that urge when you see 2 junipers next to each other, just stop yourself from looking like you are cheating and save everyone involved in that game the trouble.

 

[baby mario]

I know that this thread is now all about declumping, but I just want to say how shocked I was at this . . .

2) Arranging supporters

I found it quite disappointing to listen to a fellow Worlds contestant brag about his brilliant deck-arranging strategy in which he would intentionally place his Professor Juniper above his other supporters. His logic was that since he usually preferred to reveal a Professor Juniper with Random Receiver, placing Professor Juniper directly above another supporter would artificially increase his odds of revealing it. Brilliant idea? Yes. Fair? No. A thorough shuffle would of course negate this, but he would deliberately shuffle inadequately or fake shuffle (discussed below) to guarantee or at least increase his odds of retaining this order.

3) Manipulating opening basics

The same player explained his favorite trick to not open with the dreaded lone Shaymin. He would sandwich his Shaymin between two other basics. Combine this with an intentional inadequate or fake shuffle and it's actually impossible to cut someone into a hand that would contain Shaymin as its only basic.

I hope that this appalling person got reported and that he gets a lot of time off from the game.

 

[vaporeon]

I know that this thread is now all about declumping, but I just want to say how shocked I was at this . . .



I hope that this appalling person got reported and that he gets a lot of time off from the game.

Same here. It's very disheartening to hear about players who cheat and brag about it. A player in Masters I know here does the same thing. On top of that he's a Judge.

 

[deashira]

Pile shuffling has just as much chance to clump as it does to declump. This is because the player is incapable of favoring a pattern. However, in declumping randomness IS reduced, as the player actively reorders cards favoring a specific pattern: even distribution.

You're missing the point here. Think of every card in your deck as numbered 1-60. Even two cards of the same type (Fire Energy, for example) have a unique designation. At the end of a game you find that Fire Energies #1-3 are all attached to one of your Rayquaza EX pokemon. The purpose of pile shuffling is to seperate #1 from #2 from #3 from Rayquaza EX. If you then blindly place Fire Energy #7 next to Fire Energy #4 it doesn't matter. Even if you shuffle poorly you don't know which cards were next to which before you started shuffling.

Given ANY amount of randomization there will be some chance of re-clumping. What I'm saying is that the purpose of de-clumping is to reduce the chance of deducing the order of cards in your deck, not to increase the chance of even distribution.

RM

Edit: Perhaps I should rephrase. When I de-clump the purpose is to reduce the chance of deducing the order of cards in my deck. I'm sure there are players who try to stack the deck through even distribution instead.

 

[SteveP]

In a "perfect world," when you search your deck to retrieve the target card(s), you merely extract those cards without rearranging the original order of the deck. Afterwards, you do the necessary randomization.

Declumping, gathering multiple target cards that you're considering to extract, or any other manipulation of the original order of the deck could be considered a form of stacking, in some people's opinion.

Ness lives in the world of Poker where you never search the deck and you always draw from the top of the deck after it has been randomized. Pokemon does not live in that same world.

Nevertheless, in the world of Poker, the dealer alternates the dealing of the cards to the players. Why not just deal each player the next few cards off the top of the deck? If the deck was truly randomized, it wouldn't matter how the deal occurred. Heck, the dealer could even deal from the bottom of the deck.

What's my point? No matter how random a deck seems to some people, to other people, it's still not enough unless you do (of don't do) specific things.

One last point. In the world of statistics, randomization and distribution are independent of each other. Uniform distribution of cards after randomization is about as unlikely as a mostly-clumped deck. The most probable distribution is that some cards will be clumped and some not.

 

[LibertyFigter]

Perhaps I should rephrase. When I de-clump the purpose is to reduce the chance of deducing the order of cards in my deck. I'm sure there are players who try to stack the deck through even distribution instead.

Declumping doesn't reduce the chance of deducing the order... I'm confused. How would looking at your cards and purposefully rearranging them reduce the chance of you knowing where those cards are? Especially if you adequately randomize afterwards?

And this has become fairly focused on declumping, but as long as the OP doesn't mind, I think we're good to keep posting about it : ). In other news, like some above me, I do hope that player was severely reprimanded. "Spirit of the Game" is a thing...

 

[raw19]

In other news, like some above me, I do hope that player was severely reprimanded. "Spirit of the Game" is a thing...

I hope that guy was banned from the game for 1 or 2 years. I despise cheaters and especially such blatant and unremorseful cheaters.

 

[deashira]

I'm confused. How would looking at your cards and purposefully rearranging them reduce the chance of you knowing where those cards are? Especially if you adequately randomize afterwards?

You are confused. I have never said you should look at your cards and rearrange the cards you don't want together. I have been advocating blind de-clumping of cards that naturally gravitate to each other during gameplay. Further, I have stated that you can't reliably depend on a fully randomized shuffle every time.

RM

 

[LibertyFigter]

You are confused. I have never said you should look at your cards and rearrange the cards you don't want together. I have been advocating blind de-clumping of cards that naturally gravitate to each other during gameplay. Further, I have stated that you can't reliably depend on a fully randomized shuffle every time.

RM

Gotchya. So what you mean is "Pile Shuffling reduces the chance of deducing order." Or "shuffling" does. Or "randomization." Declumping has nothing to do with it then, except for when cards happen to declump during one of many acceptable randomizing shuffles.

Of course shuffling induces a state in which you don't know card order. Is that all you were saying?

 

[FunnyBear]

I feel that the idea of shuffling isn't about randomization. I think randomizing requires a machine to do so. The idea of shuffling involves making the player not remember where a certain card is in the deck.
.

This is the essence of randomness as it applies to a deck of cards. Its lack of knowledge. Every deck is perfectly ordered regardless of how much shuffling you do. Its just that you do not know the order. This is why pile shuffling is sufficient to achieve randomness.

 

[signofzeta]

The idea of random is that ANY outcome can happen equally at any one time. The problem with each shuffling technique is that it does not guarantee that any outcome can happen. If you do the overhand shuffle, it doesn't guarantee randomness. If you overhand shuffle 20 times let's say, it could still not be random. The idea of not randomness does not equate to lacking any knowledge. As I said, if there is a clump of energies together, and no matter how many times you shuffle, and it still stays together, then it isn't random. The idea of shuffling is to make you think any possibility could happen, and thus not be able to use the order of cards as an advantage. You think you randomized the deck, and you don't know the what cards you are going to draw. The deck itself is probably not truly random at all.

Pile shuffling while having the cards face down is fine. It's slow, but it is fine. Pile shuffling while cards are face up, well that's cheating, because you have the knowledge of the order of the cards in the deck.

A challenge is this. Look at the order of cards in your deck. Try to memorize the order. Now do the pile shuffle. Without looking at your deck, try to memorize the order of the pile shuffled deck. You probably couldn't recite the shuffled order of the deck. The deck probably isn't randomized, but neither is any other shuffling technique. Just some are less ordered than others.

The OFFICIAL shuffling technique should be this. While having a blindfold on, someone else throws your deck into the air until the cards land all over the place. With a blindfold, you play 60 card pickup and give each card to the person who threw your deck into a mess on the floor. When you pick up that card, that person will place that card face down. This repeats until you have picked up all 60 cards one by one. You also must NOT have two cards in your hand. You must pick them up one by one. That is TRUE RANDOMIZATION. To avoid getting holos by weight, once you touch a card, you have to pick it up.

 

[Sandslash7]

Or, you do it this way: Give each card in your deck a specific designation (Fire energy 1, 2, 3 etc). Give every sleeve a number designation in the same way. Have a friend use an RNG (random number generator) to generate pairs of numbers, and match each chosen card with each sleeve. Then, use the RNG again to determine the random order of the sleeves within the 60 card deck.

During a match, one may not look at the number designations of each sleeve (marked on the inside of the sleeve behind the card, which respectively displays its number on the face), so that they cannot discover what cards come next. Additionally, they must use the RNG to reorder the deck for each shuffle. No cut required, only a "reodering" using the RNG.

This reodering will be sufficient as a shuffle and almost completely random (based on the fact that most RNG's are only psuedorandom, but that is for the computer people to argue over).

 

[espeon200]

Or, you do it this way: Give each card in your deck a specific designation (Fire energy 1, 2, 3 etc). Give every sleeve a number designation in the same way. Have a friend use an RNG (random number generator) to generate pairs of numbers, and match each chosen card with each sleeve. Then, use the RNG again to determine the random order of the sleeves within the 60 card deck.

During a match, one may not look at the number designations of each sleeve (marked on the inside of the sleeve behind the card, which respectively displays its number on the face), so that they cannot discover what cards come next. Additionally, they must use the RNG to reorder the deck for each shuffle. No cut required, only a "reodering" using the RNG.

This reodering will be sufficient as a shuffle and almost completely random (based on the fact that most RNG's are only psuedorandom, but that is for the computer people to argue over).

Or players could just perform a sufficient shuffle every time the order of the deck is revealed to them...

 

[raw19]

I'm thoroughly in favor of a machine that shuffles peoples decks for them, much like they had in the Yu-Gi-Oh anime. There were no complaints at deck-stacking and the likes then. If one drew a god-hand it was blamed on the Heart of The Cards.

 

[darck467]

If that was made, I guarentee that someone would find a way to hack into the software/firmware and change the programming codes to create god-hands