Flipping heads more often with a coin opposed to rolling a dice

[waynegg]

So players go lower and roll gentler so as not to waste too much time looking for their dice on the floor.

The problem with that is it's against the rules.

 

[BigBattle]

Just came across this thread.... In terms of muscle memory, how do you think anybody good at anything physical(sports and the like) gets good. Practice makes perfect. Muscle Memory has been a valuable tool in everything physical including gambling. I know street hustlers that can flip a coin head 100% percent and I wish I was joking. As for it being cheating.....If it falls in the guidlines of POPs rules for flipping then we might have a problem. Other than that......make him follow the rules to the T.

 

[The Dark Toxicroak]

I always am telling people to roll higher. Often what people do is they roll so low it is just a drop or at least not very random. If you roll high above the table, making sure the die is flipping it will be random which is the intention of flippy cards. They are flippy for a reason, otherwise they would be too powerful. Manipulating flips is definitely cheating and I always ask my opponent's to use dice.

 

[SteveP]

Card-counting in Vegas is illegal. But, to catch it, you need to closely watch the culprit, which usually requires video taping.

If someone has spent many hours perfecting their ability to flip heads, they're cheating. Like many Vegas casinos, you'll have to spend lots of money/effort to survey for this kind of misbehavior.

I like the idea of using clear dice for randomizers. However, I don't think judges can "force" players to use clear dice, right? The Pokemon coins are a valid option, right?

 

[nnaann]

Card-counting in Vegas is illegal. But, to catch it, you need to closely watch the culprit, which usually requires video taping.

If someone has spent many hours perfecting their ability to flip heads, they're cheating. Like many Vegas casinos, you'll have to spend lots of money/effort to survey for this kind of misbehavior.

I like the idea of using clear dice for randomizers. However, I don't think judges can "force" players to use clear dice, right? The Pokemon coins are a valid option, right?

I thought it was legal, provided no equipment is used? Casinos do have the power to deny entry, so many do that or other methods such as employees asking questions to those suspected to try and get them to forget the numbers.

 

[SteveP]

Yeah, although most casinos will try to convince you that it's illegal, like you said, as long as you don't use a device, merely counting in your head isn't illegal, though most every casino will expel you if they catch you doing it. A PTO could probably do the same if they suspect you've perfected coin flipping.

But, in Pokemon, if you attempt to manipulate randomization through perfection of coin flipping, you're cheating -- per the quote someone posted above. The only question is -- is it possible to do? Unless you're a robot (device) that's capabable of flipping a coin exactly the same every time, you're not going to convince me you can flip heads consistantly (if you follow the flipping rules).

 

[TheGeneral]

I know this doesn't have much relevance, but I like to play this game with complete randomness. I've never stacked my deck, nor have I tried manipulating dice. The game is fun that way, so if I win, it is legit and I feel great about it. There's no pride or honor in playing a game you cheat in, Pokemon or anything else. Keep it random, and just build a great deck that doesn't need cheating to win and does well....that's the real skill.

*My two cents is over lol*

 

[nnaann]

Yeah, although most casinos will try to convince you that it's illegal, like you said, as long as you don't use a device, merely counting in your head isn't illegal, though most every casino will expel you if they catch you doing it. A PTO could probably do the same if they suspect you've perfected coin flipping.

But, in Pokemon, if you attempt to manipulate randomization through perfection of coin flipping, you're cheating -- per the quote someone posted above. The only question is -- is it possible to do? Unless you're a robot (device) that's capabable of flipping a coin exactly the same every time, you're not going to convince me you can flip heads consistantly (if you follow the flipping rules).

Suppose someone had the ability to roll/flip a heads every time. What would happen if they wanted to play Pokemon, but fairly with 50/50 odds, but they can tell what they're likely to flip/roll?

 

[Jaeger]

I know this doesn't have much relevance, but I like to play this game with complete randomness. I've never stacked my deck, nor have I tried manipulating dice. The game is fun that way, so if I win, it is legit and I feel great about it. There's no pride or honor in playing a game you cheat in, Pokemon or anything else. Keep it random, and just build a great deck that doesn't need cheating to win and does well....that's the real skill.

*My two cents is over lol*

There might not be pride or honor but there is money which is why cheating is such an issue other games more so than this one though.

 

[SteveP]

Suppose someone had the ability to roll/flip a heads every time. What would happen if they wanted to play Pokemon, but fairly with 50/50 odds, but they can tell what they're likely to flip/roll?

As has been pointed out from the Penalty Guideline, if they attempt to manipulate the randomness into their favor, they're cheating. The hard part I quess would be proving that attempt.

 

[xcfrisco]

Lol i swear I got gdlk at flipping heads on the coins that come in the pre-consstructed decks. I'm talkin 70% heads rate, lol.

With dice its more mixed, for obvious reasons (at one tournament I got 9 Tri-poison tails in a row and more recently got 7 fainting spells in a row at a cities, lol, so I guess my luck has evened out.) I always shake the dice really crazy in my hands and then try to roll it so it lands on the cards to prevent them bouncing everywhere.

In all seriousness, how abuseable is all heads with today's metagame decks? Gengar dies cause of poison or psychic restore and people don't even get to use there Super Scoops to heal anything anymore cause everything can and does get ohko'd in today's format, rofl. Besides, I thought everyone played SP so they could get away from decks that relied on flipping heads.

 

[nnaann]

As has been pointed out from the Penalty Guideline, if they attempt to manipulate the randomness into their favor, they're cheating. The hard part I quess would be proving that attempt.

But they don't want to cheat in Pokemon, they've learnt this elsewhere. Would they be able to get a judge to do the flips/rolls?

 

[SLOW DECK]

There is a great book call Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets is a book written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb about the fallibility of human thought. This book is all about the distortions humans put on observations. If someone flips a legal coin in a legal fashion 10 times and gets 10 heads. There are people who swear....SWEAR the coin must be rigged. But in reality random is just random.

HTHTHTHTHT (Ie H = Heads T=Tails) happens only a small fraction of percent. The probability of that would be in 1 in 33.5 Million.
That is the same probability of having all heads or all tails.... Meaning, randomness demands streaks. Every other head then tail isn't random... it might be "fair", but it isn't random.

Here is an experiment.
Flip a coin 25 times. Record every Result. (25 flips might be what someone flips in a tournament with a deck that has flips in it)
Count the number of heads.
Count the LARGEST STREAK of heads.
Repeat this 25 times random set 10,000 times. Thus flip the coin 250,000.
What is the average number of heads per set?
What is the average max "streak" of heads for each 10,000 flip set?

Well, with use of simulation software, this experiment is easy to do, if we can trust random number generator to demonstrate the results. Saves my thumb from carpel tunnel syndrome.

What is the average number of heads per set? ... obviusly 12.5 heads per set of 25 flips.
What is the average max "streak" of heads for each 10,000 flip set of 25 flips? ... 4 heads is the average and the median.


But what is the probability of have your best streak of heads in 25 flips being 4 or greater ? 57%
But what is the probability of have your best streak of heads in 25 flips being 5 or greater ? 31%
But what is the probability of have your best streak of heads in 25 flips being 6 or greater ? 16%
But what is the probability of have your best streak of heads in 25 flips being 7 or greater ? 7%
But what is the probability of have your best streak of heads in 25 flips being 10 or greater ? 1%
But what is the probability of have your best streak of heads in 25 flips being 2 or lessr ? 13%

If you or someone else flips coin 25 times during an event, there is a greater odds that they will have a streak of 6 heads being there best streak of the day, then having there best streak of the day being only 2 or less. Yes the probability of any next flip is 50%, but randomness means the likihood of 5 flips being HHHHH is the same as HTHTH.

Someone asked me yesterday what the probability of starting 4 out of 5 rounds with one Unown Q in a 12 pokemon deck... because it happened to them this weekend..... Answer... 1 in 73,000 I calculated, reality... on that day it was 100%. Random stuff happens, it would be foolish to think there is conspiricy in the random stuff. There are countless ways for a deck to get a bad hand or bad prizes.... To hyper focus on just one scenario isn't rational, human... yes... rational no.

Book is Fooled by Randomness, excellent read for folks who aren't probability hawks, but it deals with finanical market stuff but I think he hits general stuff also. BTW, most of the Climate Change "experts" should read this, I was at a professional meeting in Bermuda and was told by a PHD ithat 6,000 UN scientist can't be wrong IE Trust us because we are smart argument...., in that same room 30 minutes earlier, I heard about how all the Wall Street PHD brainiacs were wrong about the credit markets assumptions that lead to this global recession, over reliance on models both cases. The book Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb explored this. Climate change experts are accused of looking for data sets that support there believe in climate change, discarding data sets that dont' support there pre-conclusion. This is the Climage Gate scandal. Climate Change is no longer Global Warming, because the scientist have a hard time explaining the cooling that has gone on in the last 10 years. Again, I don't think it is conspiricy by these climate change scientist, just more of wishful thinking that they can find a data set that supports their Grant Research money.

Thus if we only study the streak of 5 heads, it we can come up with conclusive evidences that dice or the flipper is rigged, or are you just in the middle of a streak? (If you swear someone is a professional flipper, have them flip with their oppostite hand, if there is muscle memory, I doubt that they can do it with the other hand.)

 

[SteveP]

Good job SD at pointing out how randomness can be "streaky." For me, it's all about bad timing. My "heads" streaks always happen during playtesting, and my "tails" streaks during tournaments.:frown:

 

[ryanvergel]

give the man his guru points!