Shuffling is an art! I did some research on shuffling and found some interesting things. If you deal your deck in to piles, it really helps to change your starting pile each round. I initially deal out 6 cards to start each pile. In round 2, I start with pile 2, then round 3 starts with pile 3, etc. I've read from statisticians that this is a really good way to randomize a deck and much better than just dealing 6 piles in order every time. If you corner to corner shuffle, you need AT LEAST 5 shuffles to come close to random order. The general rule is 7 corner to corner shuffles to get a good randomization. One thing that really interested me was that really good bridge players know how they shuffle and can predict, somehow, what cards are where. If they are given fully randomized decks, their play is not as good!!! I've often wondered if the same thing happens in Pokemon, where the good players have figured out a way of shuffling that results in good starts more often than not? I once played against a player that spread their energies out throughout the deck before shuffling, and it really got me going on figuring out the best ways to shuffle and things to watch out for.