19
votes
Accepted
If I can infinitely shuffle my deck and can also look at the top card of my deck, can I short cut it to putting a card on top my deck?
No, you cannot shortcut this.
The rules governing shortcuts are in section 727 of the Comprehensive Rules. In particular, rule 727.2a describes how shortcuts can be proposed:
At any point in the game,...
13
votes
Accepted
Is either player at a disadvantage when cards "aren't' shuffled well enough"?
As long as neither player has information about the order of cards in a deck of cards, no player can gain an advantage from a "bad" shuffle.
A "bad" shuffle could be defined as a shuffle that does ...
9
votes
Accepted
How fair is an almost perfect riffle shuffle?
An almost perfect riffle shuffle of a 52 card deck is not perfectly random, but should be sufficiently fair for any casual purpose.
I decided to test this experimentally. I coded up a quick python ...
8
votes
Do people commonly play collectible card games without shuffling?
There are variants of Magic that remove deck shuffling and other sources of non-determinism, but they also make other major modifications that make the game very different from normal Magic.
One ...
7
votes
Accepted
Does a maximally clumped deck or a mana woven deck require require more shuffling to sufficiently randomize?
It doesn't make a difference.
No deck in a known order is more or less random than any other deck in a known order. A deck with all of the lands together requires just as many shuffles for ...
7
votes
Accepted
What is the correct way to shuffle?
The best way to shuffle a deck is to use multiple different methods of shuffling one after another. As the rules state pile shuffling can't be used except at the start of the game that is perhaps the ...
6
votes
What is the correct way to shuffle?
How to shuffle (theoretically)
It takes 7 riffle shuffles to randomize a deck of (52) cards. If you're playing a 60 card format 7 riffle/mash shuffles are sufficient. If you're playing commander ...
5
votes
What is the correct way to shuffle?
1) "Pile shuffling" is not actually shuffling, in that it doesn't randomize your deck. Let's say you have a deck of 60 cards and you number the cards 1-60. Then you "pile shuffle" those 60 cards ...
4
votes
Is either player at a disadvantage when cards "aren't' shuffled well enough"?
Your wife is confusing 'random' with 'balanced'
Human beings, in general, have a terrible understanding of probability.
There's a rather popular probability demo that teachers use, where they'll ...
4
votes
Is either player at a disadvantage when cards "aren't' shuffled well enough"?
There are certainly games in which a bad shuffle can benefit one player. I remember playing Ligretto, also called Dutch Blitz, against my teenage nieces who were winning far more frequently than even ...
3
votes
What is the best way to shuffle a large deck without damaging the cards?
For me, I would divide the deck into smaller parts that you can handle. Riffle shuffle (or any way you like) those and mix the small decks together, one group at a time.
3
votes
Is it okay to draw from the middle of the deck?
As long as you draw the whole deck before shuffling discards, it doesn't matter. Simply put, all cards in a well shuffled deck are equal. (Or have an equal probability of being this or that.)
...
2
votes
How fair is an almost perfect riffle shuffle?
A perfect riffle shuffle is not very effective at randomizing the cards. Cards from one half of the deck are (perfectly?) interleaved with those from the other, not changing the order of any cards ...
2
votes
Is it okay to draw from the middle of the deck?
It's true that there's no statistical difference between a card taken from the top of a perfectly shuffled deck and a card taken from the middle of the deck. (Assuming that no one has already looked ...
2
votes
Is either player at a disadvantage when cards "aren't' shuffled well enough"?
The answer to this question is going to depend on how you are shuffling the cards. If you are doing a standard riffle shuffle then as long as you can do a decent shuffle you should not need to do it ...
2
votes
Is it okay to draw from the middle of the deck?
From the Ticket to Ride official rules:
Draw Train Car Cards – The player may draw 2 Train Car cards. He may take any one of the face-up cards or he may draw the top card from
the deck (this is a ...
2
votes
Does a maximally clumped deck or a mana woven deck require require more shuffling to sufficiently randomize?
murgatroid99's answer sufficiently answers the question, this is more of a philosophical take on deck randomisation.
A perfectly random ordering is such that every possible order is equally likely. ...
1
vote
How does reshuffling the draw pile in Uno Flip! work?
The Uno Flip rules do not call out anything special for how to handle a reshuffle:
If no player is out of cards by the time the DRAW pile is depleted, the DISCARD pile is reshuffled and play.
All ...
1
vote
Is either player at a disadvantage when cards "aren't' shuffled well enough"?
There is no need for card runs to be long or for one person to have deck knowledge for a "shuffle" to be unfair for one player.
Consider the case where high cards are placed on top of low cards ...
1
vote
Is either player at a disadvantage when cards "aren't' shuffled well enough"?
Since I don’t know Skip-Bo, I will give a more general answer:
In deck-building games (like dominion) it is absolutely possible that a player benefits from a bad shuffle of their individual deck, ...
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