More on the topic of "declumping"

[Kayle]

I love discussions as much as the next guy, but this thread is getting ridiculous. Shuffling should negate any harm done by declumping. And you can shuffle your opponent's deck too.

The thread should've ended when these two points were brought up earlier.

This is too true and true golden to just be posted once. =/

Losjackal made another amazing summary. The rules ALLOW you to deflect declumping by shuffling your opponent's deck after they evidently rearrange the cards in it. You are trying to change the rules to PREVENT them from doing this, when it's not necessary to PREVENT, and such a rule would be impossibly difficult to enforce.

But in my 'liberal' position on this issue, I find a startling parallel between this discussion (we're saying you CAN do it, but you don't have to let them do it unfairly against you) and various social issues right now like abortion (we want to say you CAN do it, but you don't HAVE to if you're against it).

Just because you think something is shady doesn't mean they can't do it, because you're already given the tools to prevent it from affecting the gamestate.

 

[signofzeta]

What is the real definition of declumping? Mine is basically place the cards one by one into 8 piles, with the next card going into a different pile from the previous. Is declumping really the fact that rather than placing all the discard, active pokemon, and bench on the top from the previous match, you deliberately scatter them into the main deck,? For example, you cut your deck into 8 piles. You cut your discard pile into 8 piles. You place one pile of the discard on top of one pile of your deck. You place one of the bench pokemon on top. Then you pick another pile of discard and place it on top, etc. In which case, I call this the lazy declump.

I've said this in another thread, but true randomization is impossible.

I don't really need to declump if I do the riffle shuffle, but since I don't know how to do the riffle shuffle, I use sleeves, so I just do the mash shuffle, which simulates the riffle shuffle.

I only declump before I use sleeveless decks, in which I do the overhand shuffle. Now in this case, in every case, if I don't declump, I see traces of the same ordering of cards that I used last game. For example, a full evolution line all together in the same-ish order. Well to tell you the truth, I only declump when I know that the deck is in a perfect order, that is all the energies at the top, then the Pokemon, then the trainers. After each game, I do a lazy declump, that is, I split the evolution chain, for example, and deliberately put it in different spots, split the bench pokemon and put them in different spots, rather than just stacking the discard pile, the active pokemon with energies attached and it's pre-evolved forms as well, and putting all 5 bench pokemon on the top. When I say lazy declump, it isn't where you take your deck, and place a card face down, and make a few piles, no. It is when you try to separate the cards so traces of the previous match don't appear. It doesn't make it more random, but it sure makes it so that you aren't playing the previous match again.

The point of declumping is removing traces of the previous game, so you don't have to overhand shuffle for 2 hours straight just to get the cards in a totally different order from previous. Declumping does NOT increase randomization. Declumping changes the start point or starting order of cards, before the card goes through randomization from the real shuffle. If you really believe that declumping is cheating, because even after the actual shuffle after the declumping, then therefore, not declumping and getting bad hands, or an ordering of cards that is similar to the previous game is not cheating, doesn't make any much sense to me.

It is also the fact that, as long as you can't recite where each card is in your deck, then it is shuffled enough. I sure ain't wasting time shuffling, but if I keep on seeing the same ordering from the previous game, because seriously, overhand shuffling isn't that effective, I declump to remove traces of that previous game, then I do the overhand.

If you shuffle in such a way that you can still expect what type of card is coming next in your draw, then you are doing it wrong. In that case, if I only declumped, and did nothing after, then I'd sort of would know the order of the cards. If I declumped and shuffle afterwards, then it is hard to tell where each card is. At that point, my knowledge of the ordering of cards is close to 0, and in that case, the deck is shuffled.

So in conclusion, if you want to make your deck truly random, go and shuffle for 2 hours, you know, to make it really random. Now if you want to play the game instead, shuffle it enough so that you can't formulate a strategy based on the ordering of your cards.

In all honesty, every single shuffling technique is not truly random. True randomization would state that if you shuffle your deck, there is a chance that it would be the exact same order as if you haven't shuffled your deck. In the real world, you shuffle your deck, you can't shuffle it back into the same order you started out with. It is just impossible. If this makes you happy, then this should be the official shuffling method that everybody should use. Everybody needs to get a blindfold, a REAL blindfold. Throw your deck in the air. Play 60 card pickup. There. That's true randomization.

I think everybody is cheating. Oh, you are putting your discard pile on the top of your deck, then your bench pokemon, then your active pokemon and everything attached to it. You are CHEATING. It isn't any different from declumping. People are stacking their decks when they pick up their cards and put them in one pile, from the previous match. To me, this doesn't make any sense. Declumping is basically cleaning up after yourself from the previous match, in a different way.

If you seriously believe that declumping is cheating, because you seriously believe that it is making the deck less random, even after the actual shuffle, then it isn't the fault of the declumping. It is the fault of the actual shuffle. You would say it ISN'T cheating if that person doesn't declump, and draws into the same order as the previous game, or keeps on drawing no energies, or keeps on having the same bad luck? It makes no sense. So it is cheating if the bad shuffling makes him draw into something good, but it isn't cheating if the same bad shuffle draws him into something bad, such as seeing only trainers and 1 pokemon in your opening hand, because that was what the discard pile was in your previous game? Ok then. People declump in order to REMOVE any resemblance of the order of cards from the previous game, in case they shuffle horribly afterwards. That is all. Declumping really does NOTHING if you can shuffle well. If you think the deck is stacked, don't blame it on the declumping. Blame it on their super poor shuffling skills, in which case, if your opponent doesn't mind, you, the judge, or anybody with great shuffling skills, without wrecking the cards, should shuffle the deck. It's that simple. Why didn't I think of that before?

If you don't want to deal with all this shuffling shenanigan, play Pokemon TCG online. The Computer never cheats.

It is a good thing I don't play in leagues or tournaments, and prefer to play at home with people I can trust. There are way too many paranoid people out there, which does say something about myself. I'm paranoid that there are paranoid people out there. Get it?

 

[losjackal]

Hi everyone. Hope you all had a fun BR yesterday.

Bryan506, you said we should follow the letter of the rules. There is no rule that says a player cannot alter the order of the cards when searching. In fact, the game encourages reordering of the deck. Yesterday at BR, it was clarified that if the first card after a Random Receiver is a Supporter, you shuffle anyway. My interpetation of this is, even though no other cards were revealed, there is public knowledge now of a slightly less probability that the next card is a Supporter too, so you must reshuffle to give all the cards equal chance in the deck to bubble to the top.

King Piplup, that "no manipulation of a random result" I think is written towards coin flips / die rolls, in my opinion. In that epic thread, if someone practices coin flipping, and think they get good at it, and use that ability to flip in their favor, does that violate this rule? Even if some people think it does, it's not something enforceable as long as they follow the proper procedure for a fair flip or die roll. If you want to apply it here, no matter what they intend to do by manipulating the cards in their deck, as long as the procedures are followed to defeat any attempt, there is no penalty.

BlisseyRocks, I declump because it saves time. I want to break apart the clumps, so if a rule is written that says I cannot knowingly alter the order of the cards of my deck, then I will simply shuffle 7 times after the search mid-game. (I wrote knowingly because shuffling is altering the order of the cards too, gotta allow for that still.) Or if I want, I can execute a six-pile shuffle mid-game. That is certainly destroying the clump (while admittedly perhaps clumping other cards, impossible to know). It would be silly to make a rule saying you can't destroy a clump by moving a card when searching, but still allowing for a six-pile shuffle. As signofzeta says above, six-piling is declumping.


Everyone else: here's a new observation I made yesterday. When you play Super Rod and get back three energies, where do put them? For argument's sake, let's assume 2/3 the population spreads them out through their deck, shuffles twice, offers the cut, and proceeds with play. The other 1/3 puts the three energies on top, shuffles seven times, offers the cut, and proceeds with play. Are the 2/3 doing it wrong? Because that is certainly a form of declumping: I don't know the rest of the my deck, but I do know these three cards, and I'm choosing not to clump them on top before shuffling.

 

[vaporeon]

losjackal, When I play a Super Rod, I place the cards at the 1/3 spots of my deck. 1 Near the top, the other in the middle and the last card near the bottom, then I shuffle my deck and offer to my opponent to cut. Reason I do that is because I know if I put the cards in the same spot, they will clump together.

Same with cards like 'N' or other cards that require you to shuffle 2 or more cards into the deck. I split them up so they don't clump because if I leave them together, I have knowledge that a few of my card will be drawn together, which will give me a advantage or a disadvantage. Who wants to play a game at a disadvantage? I for one do not.

Also, you're right about it saving time. No one has time to do 7 riffle shuffles after every search when about 5-10 of each game goes to searching. You can effectively a game of Pokemon is going to be about 20 or so minutes because of that.

Any knowledge you have of the order of your deck after the shuffle is considered stacking. think that's the big thing they are not understanding.

 

[bullados]

Nope, but 7-10 Mashes take about 3-5 seconds. And they're nearly as effective as your average riffle. In sleeves, it doesn't damage the cards at all.

 

[BlisseyRocks]

Once again this thread wasnt made to address in game declumping. It was made to address pre game declumping, which is much more serious.

 

[vaporeon]

How so? If that were the case, everyone would be given DQ's at the first round of the tournament...

 

[PMysterious]

Let me rephrase that:

"My opponent should ALWAYS thoroughly shuffle my deck whenever I shuffle, because I declump and intentionally shuffle poorly to prevent any dead draws"

I usually shuffle well if that's the case. And besides, I let my opponent cut so I never attempt to stack.

 

[losjackal]

BlisseyRocks, can I do this in between rounds, without you considering it serious cheating?

1. Shuffle my deck, then look at the cards. If they look distributed enough, wait for the next match.
2. If I see clumps I don't like, repeat Step 1.

 

[NoPoke]

or even just look at your cards between rounds!

 

[psychup2034]

I love discussions as much as the next guy, but this thread is getting ridiculous. Shuffling should negate any harm done by declumping. And you can shuffle your opponent's deck too.

The thread should've ended when these two points were brought up earlier.

If you rob a bank, then give the money back the next day, you still robbed a bank, and it's still illegal. Stacking your deck is illegal regardless of whether you "undo" it later or not.

Pokemon arbitrarily bifurcates stacking into the two categories of (1) declumping and (2) stacking. If you ask the players of the two largest card games in the world—poker and blackjack, they would think that someone claiming that declumping isn't stacking is intellectually challenged.

 

[BlisseyRocks]

Vaporeon is quite obvious that most have their deck ripped BEFORE the tournament. If the tournament hasn't happened, the rules don't apply.

losjackal: i honestly cant even remember the last time i showed someone my deck. I have no problem with explaining to them the concept of what i'm playing, because i'd rather them have to work on it themselves than have picture perfect memory of my list. What do you NEED to show someone your deck for that's so important?

Also if this rule was put in place most people would avoid doing things like this, and these problems would never happen. Like someone said earlier in the thread, it would leave only people who do it to actually cheat doing it. And that can only help to catch them.

 

[NoPoke]

If you rob a bank, then give the money back the next day, you still robbed a bank, and it's still illegal. Stacking your deck is illegal regardless of whether you "undo" it later or not.

Pokemon arbitrarily bifurcates stacking into the two categories of (1) declumping and (2) stacking. If you ask the players of the two largest card games in the world—poker and blackjack, they would think that someone claiming that declumping isn't stacking is intellectually challenged.

the analogy has at least two problems:
1) in those games you are not allowed to look at the deck.
2) no one considers what is done prior to the shuffle as stacking as long as the shuffle is sufficient.

Before the start of a game there is loads of time to shuffle and ensure that you present a sufficiently randomised deck. If a player is not confident in their ability to shuffle rapidly then they are much more likely to engage in some declumping or pile shuffles as a precursor to shuffle and present. Its better to do that away from the table but there is no rule that says players can't look at their cards before they randomise. Nor should there be.

 

[Kayle]

If you rob a bank, then give the money back the next day, you still robbed a bank, and it's still illegal. Stacking your deck is illegal regardless of whether you "undo" it later or not.

Pokemon arbitrarily bifurcates stacking into the two categories of (1) declumping and (2) stacking. If you ask the players of the two largest card games in the world—poker and blackjack, they would think that someone claiming that declumping isn't stacking is intellectually challenged.

I just have to say, your comparing poker to Pokemon is seriously one of the most flawed arguments I've heard in this thread. There is no declumping in poker or blackjack, it doesn't exist, because clumps don't exist. You wouldn't intentionally separate cards in poker or blackjack, you would intentionally group them together if anything. They probably wouldn't even know what declumping is until you told them.

Once again this thread wasnt made to address in game declumping. It was made to address pre game declumping, which is much more serious.

Psychup's "robbing a bank" analogy, and this statement, are both logical and fair, though I still believe they reside firmly in the territory of excessive paranoia. But you fail to address two extremely important counterarguments.

Firstly, enforcing a rule against pre-game declumping is virtually impossible. How are you supposed to do it? Judges policing the playing area making sure no one reorders their deck, ever? Judges taking away a deck postgame, and giving it back to you pregame? Forcing players to start with an ordered deck? Whatever rule you create will be at best unfair and extremely controlling, and at worst an absolute nightmare to implement.

Secondly, if you rob a bank, it's illegal, but if the police can just wire the money back into the bank account as soon as the robbers walk out with it, I don't think anyone's going to care that much that they robbed the bank (except on the obvious moral premise, in which case we can just laugh at their futile silliness). If your opponent declumps, shuffle their deck. You can feel good about foiling a cheater for a day. It's like you implemented your rule changes for your specific match! And everyone else can do it, too!

le edit: if your opponent declumps pre-game and you don't see it, and then they shuffle well enough that you feel comfortable with their randomization... they have undone their declumping. If they don't shuffle sufficiently, add your own shuffles in to make it sufficient.

 

[signofzeta]

There is NO RULE out there that says how you should pick up after yourself from the last game. It doesn't say that you must place the discard pile on top of your main deck, in the same order, then place your bench with all attached energies and pokemon on top of that, then place the active pokemon and its attachments on top of that, then place the remaining prize cards on top of that.

People probably declump when they pick up after themselves from the previous game. Declumping does NOTHING so long as you shuffle afterwards. Pile Shuffling does NOTHING so long as you don't shuffle face up, provided you do a different shuffle afterward. If you think that the deck may be stacked, due to your paranoia, or that the person is obviously stacking the deck, then stop blaming it on the declumping. It is the fact that that person DIDN'T shuffle the deck, and not declump the deck, that the deck is stacked.

All Declumping ever does, if it isn't the full fledged make 8 piles way, and more like put this card near bottom, near middle, near top, etc. way, only takes away a few seconds, and people do it right AFTER the previous match, and not right BEFORE the next match.

If it makes you happy, people could turn all of the cards from the previous game face down, and slide each card into each area, without turning any card face up.

Remeber that you have to be consistent here. If you claim that making your draws better by declumping, is cheating, then doing what I said in the first paragraph is also cheating. You are basically "stacking" your deck so that the game state is the same as the previous game. Let's say both players declump their decks in front of you, in plain sight. One has good draw, pretty much even distibution of energies, while the other one has all energies at the bottom, so basically bad draws. I'd bet you say the one with even distribution of energies is cheating, while the other isn't. It's like in hockey, where you body check someone from behind, into the boards, and that person doesnt't have the puck, so you do a boarding penalty, but you injure yourself. Guess who's going to the penalty box? You. Basically, the inconsistency here is this. Declumping and knowing the fact that you don't have clumps before shuffling is cheating, but yet, not declumping and knowing you have clumps isn't cheating? Get some consistency here.

 

[psychup2034]

2) no one considers what is done prior to the shuffle as stacking as long as the shuffle is sufficient.

Judges who judge based on the official penalty guidelines consider what is done prior to the shuffle as stacking if stacking actually happened, regardless of whether any future shuffling would "undo" that stack.

7.6.4. Cheating
Players who intentionally commit infractions are looking to gain an unfair advantage over other players at the event. The Head Judge should carefully consider whether an infraction was intentional or not before applying this penalty. If the Head Judge feels that an infraction was unintentional, this penalty should not be applied.
Examples of Unsporting Conduct: Cheating include:
- Stacking your deck.

Obviously, Pokemon makes an exception for the type of stacking that is classified as declumping because of the difficulty in enforcing such a rule for declumping. However, when actual stacking happens and is caught, a judge has the responsibility to follow the rules set in the penalty guidelines.

---------- Post added 09/30/2012 at 02:36 PM ----------

I just have to say, your comparing poker to Pokemon is seriously one of the most flawed arguments I've heard in this thread. There is no declumping in poker or blackjack, it doesn't exist, because clumps don't exist. You wouldn't intentionally separate cards in poker or blackjack, you would intentionally group them together if anything. They probably wouldn't even know what declumping is until you told them.

You think that the argument is flawed because you don't actually make money off of playing poker. There is no declumping in poker or blackjack because typically there would be an uninvested third party shuffling the deck, and that party would have no incentive to manipulate the outcome of a match (absent collusion).

If given the option, a cheating poker player would intentionally separate or combine cards in certain ways (decreasing the odds of particular hands happening, thus manipulating the relative strengths of particular hands).

The reason why people don't declumping to cheat in poker is because players themselves don't have a chance to manipulate a deck. My point is that a poker player would consider declumping as stacking (and thus cheating) if they learned exactly what declumping is. Unfortunately, this is a point that completely went over your head.

 

[Kayle]

You think that the argument is flawed because you don't actually make money off of playing poker. There is no declumping in poker or blackjack because typically there would be an uninvested third party shuffling the deck, and that party would have no incentive to manipulate the outcome of a match (absent collusion).

Um... no. If you can prove me wrong I invite you to do so, but you need to be proving the right thing wrong.

Let me repeat my point:

"There is no declumping in poker or blackjack, it doesn't exist, because clumps don't exist. You wouldn't intentionally separate cards in poker or blackjack, you would intentionally group them together if anything."

Why would you ever want to intentionally separate a grouping of cards in poker or blackjack? Those games are dictated by groups and their different ratings and rankings. A more 'standard distribution' of cards in the deck, if you will, might be unfavorable for others, but will also be unfavorable for you, and the net change of the outcome of the game is nil.

Stacking the deck, on the other hand, such that you can predict who will get what hands (even if you aren't dictating what they are directly), is an extremely unfair advantage.

If given the option, a cheating poker player would intentionally separate or combine cards in certain ways (decreasing the odds of particular hands happening, thus manipulating the relative strengths of particular hands).

That's stacking.

Once again, declumping is the practice of taking a known distribution of cards, and placing them in unknown/random positions.

Intentionally separating or combining cards with an intent to produce a certain order is stacking.

Unfortunately, this is a point that completely went over your head.

But you aren't responding to my point either. =/

If you want to communicate your point to me, then either definitively, systematically prove that my definitions are not workable for the situation (which is unlikely, since my definitions are much closer to P!P's rule guidelines than the definitions I'm inferring from your arguments), or use my definitions to form your argument. Otherwise I'm really going to have a hard time understanding you.

le edit: Let me try to bring this post back directly to the subject of the thread.

You are trying to compare declumping (/stacking, as you see it) in Pokemon, to the same practice in poker or blackjack. I am explaining that I feel this comparison is highly misinformed.

You can form a different one if you like, since this discussion isn't really directly accomplishing anything.

 

[psychup2034]

Once again, declumping is the practice of taking a known distribution of cards, and placing them in unknown/random positions.

Your statement is extremely deceptive.

Declumping is the practice of taking a known, relatively unfavorable distribution of cards, and placing them into an unknown, relatively favorable position.

Stop trying to avoid the fact that declumping gives the player who delcumps a more favorable probability distribution of drawing certain cards.

 

[Kayle]

Your statement is extremely deceptive.

Declumping is the practice of taking a known, relatively unfavorable distribution of cards, and placing them into an unknown, relatively favorable position.

Stop trying to avoid the fact that declumping gives the player who delcumps a more favorable probability distribution of drawing certain cards.

But it doesn't because you shuffle afterwards.

I mean, clearly, if you just left it that way it would be unfair.

I don't know why you keep skipping the shuffle step. Even if you played against a field of cheaters who declumped and then just didn't shuffle, or shuffled poorly, you'd shuffle for them. That's the whole crux of our argument.

 

[Politoed666]

I order my deck between rounds to make sure everything is there and to further familiarize myself with it.

Sorry.