"Declumping" a Deck

[K2theAblaM]

The wasting time argument as Ness and others have stated is the randomization done AFTER you declump. Again I don't think it's a big deal but as Ness said, it requires about 5-7 riffle shuffles to randomize a deck which takes about 1 minute let's say. In order to fully randomize ur deck after declumping, you have to riffle 5 times at least. If you do not do so your opponent will have to do it for you if they deem it necessary. If you declump after EVERY search i can see more than 5 minutes of playing time being wasted on proper shuffling which I'm thinking is most peoples' problem over the issue. Correct if I'm wrong but please don't flame me

You have to shuffle properly ANYWAYS. What's your point?

 

[TheRolesWePlay]

You're bringing in irrelevant examples to this. Narrowing down your search and making it easier to find cards while you're searching is not the issue. The issue is catching clumps of cards and taking the time out to put them somewhere else for the sake of moving them away from other certain cards.

I disagree. Narrowing down may not be the same as declumping to you, but others view it as the same exact thing, which isn't irrelevent it's a valid point that should be discussed. If you have an issue with declumping, then you should have a problem with moving cards.

But that is what the cards are telling you to do.

"Search".

If Police "Search" my car, they are looking through it in detail for something they may or may not find.

If someone "Searches" for buried treasure, they are looking through an area for the correct spot to dig.

If I "Search" my deck, I look through it for the card I'm looking for.

Searching involves an analysis of the medium used, whether it be a car, an area, or the deck, you need to know what you're looking through.

These are poor examples. When Police search a car there are different possibilities. They might have a dog sniff around it. They just look around, or they might gut the entire thing and throw everything all over the place.

When one searches for treasure one approach is just look for it's location, and another is to dig it out the ground and displace the ground on top of it.

These examples suggest that you could just glance around (which is often not very thorough) or moving things around in order to find it. Real life situations involve things being in hard to reach locations, which is irrelevant when talking about a deck.

Everything else has been covered pretty well by other posts.

 

[K2theAblaM]

You're complaining about wasting time when people take half a second to move one card from one place to another, most people just throw it somewhere else randomly in the deck. Apparently this is wasting time.

Then you claim that if you think the deck is not distributed correctly or "unevenly" then instead of declumping, you should spend more time shuffling the deck.

Using this logic, how on earth is half a second longer than spending extra time shuffling your deck?

I shuffle the same way, every time. No matter what. I spend no less or no more time shuffling my deck after I search. No matter what I do, my shuffling takes the same amount of time.

I've already spoke about this in an earlier post.

I don't know about you, but I can riffle 6 times pretty easily when I shuffle. Actually, I riffle about 5-8 times, and then I strip twice and riffle once more for good measure, EVERY time I go into my deck, and then offer the cut. It's habit now, and part of my muscle memory to do so. If I feel like your deck isn't properly shuffled, then I will be shuffling your deck and offering you the cut. You're welcomed to do the same to my deck so long as you don't bridge or bend the cards.

 

[Alazor]

What do you mean by rearranging your hand during a mulligan?

I mean if your opponent looks at your hand during a mulligan and rearranges your cards. And then you proceed to shuffle.

 

[MGS-58]

@K2Their argument is that if you DON'T declump, the need to riffle at least 5 times is negated as the deck would already be random. The distribution is random and some less than thorough shuffling would not indicate any kind of cheating as you would not have altered anything.

@Alazor I understand your point, but mulligans don't happen all that often. At least, it shouldn't. I fail to see why your opponent would rearrange your hand anyways. In all the games I've played not once has my opponent rearranged my hand on a mulligan.

 

[SONYEDDIE]

This post. You are over thinking it.

As long as the deck gets cut/shuffled at the end of "declumping" what does it matter?
Declumping (or whatever people call it) is not illegal nor you should be asking what your oppenent is doing. Just cut/shuffle his deck and get it over with. Asking questions during the game is just a waste of time IMO

 

[K2theAblaM]

@K2Their argument is that if you DON'T declump, the need to riffle at least 5 times is negated as the deck would already be random. The distribution is random and some less than thorough shuffling would not indicate any kind of cheating as you would not have altered anything.

.

The moment you see your cards, they are no longer random. The whole point of shuffling is to not know what card you will draw.

With that said, people should be shuffling properly ANYWAYS. I don't care what the next person says about declumping, shuffling etc. You have to do it. No exceptions. If you don't do it, then I'll do it for you and don't care how long it will take. You can tell the judge that I'm taking extra time making sure your deck is random if you want... and that judge would wonder why you didn't shuffle properly in the first place.

My case is solid.

---------- Post added 11/03/2011 at 02:26 PM ----------

As long as the deck gets cut/shuffled at the end of "declumping" what does it matter?
Declumping (or whatever people call it) is not illegal nor you should be asking what your oppenent is doing. Just cut/shuffle his deck and get it over with. Asking questions during the game is just a waste of time IMO

Occam's razor

The simplest explanation is usually correct.

 

[SteveP]

No! Holy Golbat, no! Where on earth are you getting such a ridiculous idea? There is no "effect" of a random deck. It has no likelihood of being anyone particular sequence than any other! You cannot artificially produce a "random" deck!

Have your ever heard of uniform distribution? That's the description of a random sampling that appears to be mostly declumped.

The study of random sampling describes how items are distributed in the sample space. I would argue that a uniform distribution is no less or more random than a normal (bell) distribution, or most any other distribution.

I challenge you to clump a deck in anyway you seem fit, then present the deck to a judge to see if he thinks it's random. Now, declump the deck and have him check again. I can almost guarantee that a clumped deck will appear less random to the judge than a declumped one. Why? Because uniformly random decks "seem" to be more random. It all goes back to the "Chaos Thereory" that like objects tend to declump themselves in nature.

 

[Ness]

You cannot tell if a deck is random by looking at it. There are trillions and trillions of different combinations our 60 cards can be arranged in - all of which have an equal chance of occurring if a deck is randomized properly. No one combination is any more random than the other.

Technically, there is an astronomically low chance (far into the trillions and trillions) that you shuffle your deck into the exact order it was written on your deck list. If you saw this, would it look randomized? Of course not. But could it be? Yes, and that order of 60 cards has the same probability of occurring as any other order your deck happens can be placed in, including the last order it was in when you played your last game with it.

 

[Rambo]

I shuffle the same way, every time. No matter what. I spend no less or no more time shuffling my deck after I search. No matter what I do, my shuffling takes the same amount of time.

I've already spoke about this in an earlier post.

I wasn't necessarily referring to you, but other people have suggested spending extra time shuffling.

 

[SteveP]

You cannot tell if a deck is random by looking at it. There are trillions and trillions of different combinations our 60 cards can be arranged in - all of which have an equal chance of occurring if a deck is randomized properly. No one combination is any more random than the other.

Technically, there is an astronomically low chance (far into the trillions and trillions) that you shuffle your deck into the exact order it was written on your deck list. If you saw this, would it look randomized? Of course not. But could it be? Yes, and it has the same probability of occurring as the last order your deck just happened to be in.

Yes and no. Statisticians often measure randomess by how well the distribution fits a predefined curve. Uniform distribution is generally accepted as a good measure, and declumping facilitates uniform distribution.

The "no" comes into play when you deem uniform distribution to be less desirable; for example, normal distribution is better is some real-world sample spaces (ie., 80-20 rule where 20% of the people pay 80% of the taxes).

 

[PokePop]

I don't think you are qualified to set these timeframes. I would sure hope 60 seconds to search your deck for Pokémon Collector was out of the question. I don't care if it was your first search or not.

Can we get an answer from Clay or Pop on this?

While a first search of the deck is given some leeway to allow for checking what cards might be in the prizes and so forth, I can't give a hard and fast amount of time that is allowed.

 

[K2theAblaM]

While a first search of the deck is given some leeway to allow for checking what cards might be in the prizes and so forth, I can't give a hard and fast amount of time that is allowed.

I've addressed this in a previous post in this thread.

Hey I've got a video to show you guys, namely you, ness.

Game 2 Ross Vs. Sami in the top 16 at worlds.

Game 2: Part 1

Forward to 4:38 Ross uses 52 seconds to search for a cleffa off a pokemon communication. A CLEFFA mind you. A single pokemon. 52 seconds.


Notable quotes from Pooka & Crimz.

"Ross probably was just checking to see what was prized. On the first turn it’s perfectly acceptable… The first one you can’t blame them."

"Ross isn’t forced to speed up by any means."

Due note that this is a game where TIME was extremely important. It was the second game of a match that had already taken up a large amount of time.

60 seconds can go by faster than anyone realizes, and is actually conservative when you take into the account the decision making process and the search/prize analysis. Obviously for the first search of the game, but I wouldn't object to a twins that takes 60 seconds to decide on mid game either.

 

[losjackal]

Let's look at the supposed problem another way.

Search your discard pile for 3 Pokémon and 3 basic Energy cards.
Show them to your opponent and shuffle them into your deck.

What is the proper procedure for shuffling these cards back into your deck?
Is someone really going to call foul if I cut the cards into six different places in the deck, instead of putting them all on top?

If yes, please explain how it makes any kind of difference after sufficient shuffling and cutting.
If no, then there is nothing left to discuss on this thread.

 

[vaporeon]

Let's look at the supposed problem another way.



What is the proper procedure for shuffling these cards back into your deck?
Is someone really going to call foul if I cut the cards into six different places in the deck, instead of putting them all on top?

If yes, please explain how it makes any kind of difference after sufficient shuffling and cutting.
If no, then there is nothing left to discuss on this thread.

When I play that card, I put then in different spots in the deck after showing them to my opponent because I don't like clumps. I then shuffle and give my deck to my opponent for them to shuffle.

 

[Ness]

While a first search of the deck is given some leeway to allow for checking what cards might be in the prizes and so forth, I can't give a hard and fast amount of time that is allowed.

I've addressed this in a previous post in this thread.

No, lol...you don't address this topic. He does.

 

[TheRolesWePlay]

In either case the time limit for deck searches, especially the first one, is vague, (not super vague, just a little vague) and that's the important part.

 

[Ness]

Let's look at the supposed problem another way.
What is the proper procedure for shuffling these cards back into your deck?
Is someone really going to call foul if I cut the cards into six different places in the deck, instead of putting them all on top?

You would simply be expected to do an adequate shuffle so that it didn't matter where you placed the cards into your deck. This is different than someone who is rearranging cards in their deck in an attempt to manipulate it. (For two reasons: The latter has an intent to create an unfair advantage and it also has nothing to do with the effect of the card they are using.)

 

[K2theAblaM]

No, lol...you don't address this topic. He does.

Hey, here's an idea. How about you actually address the content of any one of my other posts you so conveniently ignored about the actual topic instead of arguing over the syntax of one of my sentences.

As a matter of fact, his reply actual SUPPORTED my argument, along with pooka's video that I posted and its analysis. How about you counter that, Ness.

ps lol.

---------- Post added 11/03/2011 at 03:50 PM ----------

You would simply be expected to do an adequate shuffle so that it didn't matter where you placed the cards into your deck. This is different than someone who is rearranging cards in their deck in an attempt to manipulate it. (For two reasons: The latter has an intent to create an unfair advantage and it also has nothing to do with the effect of the card they are using.)

How is it an unfair advantage if the deck is going to get shuffled anyways? Please elaborate.

 

[losjackal]

You would simply be expected to do an adequate shuffle so that it didn't matter where you placed the cards into your deck. This is different than someone who is rearranging cards in their deck in an attempt to manipulate it. (For two reasons: The latter has an intent to create an unfair advantage and it also has nothing to do with the effect of the card they are using.)

So one is okay and one is not, and the difference between arranging the cards for the Flower Shop Lady effect versus rearranging during a search is:

1. intent to create an unfair advantage
2. nothing to do with the card effect

All along I thought this thread was about wasting time?


Let me try again.

You have a bad hand consisting of all energy. I play Judge. You are free to place the energies in your deck before shuffling any way you see fit. You know what your cards are, I do not. You'll know if you left them clumped together on top, or whether you distributed them through the deck. I will not. You adequately shuffle, and I cut. Do you have an unfair advantage over me?