Shuffling Machines

[Louie Landale]

The casino I play has installed some shuffling machines at some of the tables. I appear to be a bit slow, but I've concluded that moving to such a table is a no-brainer: [1] more dealt hands per hour [2] the increased pace makes every play a little faster (the "feed" on the fast energy), which increases [1] and plays to my strength: I think quicker than they and the're fast play makes them even more predictable than they already are.

So now I play at at the dealing machines.

- Louie

[pudley4]

Plus you don't waste time with players calling for a deck change every other hand, because it's already changing every hand /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[onegymrat]

Here is L.A., "they" will still find a way to blame the cards. They just ask for a setup more often, or sit out more often.

I agree with Louie, I like the machines a lot.

[Khern]

One of the best dealers at the room I play in says that the machines break up his rhythm and don't add any hands per hour(for him). Said that it had something to do with his teacher and that other students of the teacher don't like the machines either.

I think most of the dealers like them.

John

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Louie:

You can also add in less dealing errors which helps to keep the players in a good mood.

Best wishes,
mason

[Rick Nebiolo]

At the Bike we are using machines on every table that gets games daily. When the new no limit section was being carved out of some office space adjoining top section, the electricity to the machines was temporarily down in the area we were still spreading no limt. Several times the whole table asked that we be moved to a table with a machine (even when it was inconvieniently located). To make a short story long, we like them here at the Bike /images/graemlins/grin.gif

~ Rick

PS Didn't realize you were still posting so much. I've mostly been surfing other forums (within 2+2). The whole thing is just too big to keep up with it all

[andyfox]

A big plus in L.A. is that the soreheads don't blame the dealers (as much) for their "bad" cards.

[Louie Landale]

Just to be contrary: is this a good thing? Don't we want the suckers blaming the dealer rather than something more reasonable?

[andyfox]

I'm not sure they become more reasonable in their thinking; perhaps they blame the machine instead of the dealer. It does make them less obnoxious and angry. They don't throw their cards as much. I'm for that.

One of my favorites was when a guy, drawn out on on the river, said to the dealer, "All those cards in the deck, you had to pick out the 4 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif for him?"

[MaxPower]

Rick, do you know if they rake more per hour off the tables that have Shufflemasters.

[Rick Nebiolo]

I'd say a holdem table with a shufflemaster (once the dealers are trained to use them) gets about four more hands per hour. I don't have access to financial figures so these numbers are an insiders guestimate /images/graemlins/smile.gif.

~ Rick

[RyanTheMick]

I have been a Hold 'Em dealer for close to two years now, and I have to tell you that I've played on tables with machines and I just don't like them. I have never dealt with one, but observed the dealers closely to see how they handled it. They didn't seem to let the dealers ever get into a flow.
I know when I deal, that I can deal 35-40 hands per hour without one. If you have a need to play more hands than that per hour, play online. But 35-40 hands per hour in a B&M is pretty damned good. And, in tipping situations, players are more likely to tip more when there is no machine involved, when there's a personal touch. When a dealer rivers you a lock on a monster pot, you know it was fate talking through that dealer's hands.

Like my friend Pots McShipit says : "The river....she's a whore."

[Louie Landale]

Here they said they are getting around 30% more rake. But these games already go fairly fast. Slow games won't make much difference since a much lower %age of the time is spent manually shuffling.

- Louie

[Louie Landale]

My favorite was with Villian with a pair and Hero with a flush draw and double belly buster and made one of his straights. Villian complained that Hero stayed all the way "with a gut-draw" and snagged "the case 5h".

- Louie

An in a rare case of self-control, after a long silent pregnant pause I said nothing.

[Phat Mack]

Has anyone at the bike put a made-up deck in the machine, then taken it out and spread it? Then continued the process? The reason I ask is that there was a belief among bridge players in the 50's and 60's that if you shuffled a deck more than six times, it started to come back together. There's an MIT site (I can't seem to find it) that did some experiments on this and concluded the same thing.

I like to "play" with stuff. Has anyone at the Bike sat down and played with a machine and made any interesting observations?

[andyfox]

What about abusive behavior? Do the jerks get less pissed off at you when they get rivered?

[Al_Capone_Junior]

In Vegas, I tend to preferentially play at rooms (or tables) that have shuffling machines. They are simply fantastic IMO.

I heard a rumor that the guy who owns the patent won't give it up (or something to that effect) and that the rooms have to lease out those machines for some ridiculous amount. This might be true, might be total BS, I don't really know. Anyone who could elaborate (in great detail of course) please feel free...

al

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
Has anyone at the bike put a made-up deck in the machine, then taken it out and spread it? Then continued the process? The reason I ask is that there was a belief among bridge players in the 50's and 60's that if you shuffled a deck more than six times, it started to come back together. There's an MIT site (I can't seem to find it) that did some experiments on this and concluded the same thing.

I like to "play" with stuff. Has anyone at the Bike sat down and played with a machine and made any interesting observations?

[/ QUOTE ]

About a couple of years ago I took notice of the Shufflemaster machine when another casino started to use it on an ever increasing number of tables. The customers and casino staff and dealers seemed to love it (plus the RGP response was positive}. I passed the information on up the food chain and the Bicycle Casino now uses Shufflemaster machines at most tables where games are regularly spread.

Anyway, your idea sounds cool. I'll pass it on upstairs. From what I understand, the machine performs about seven shuffles and the processor uses some sort of seed into its RNG that is more or less asynchronous. In other words, it is supposed to produce a much better shuffle.

I hope that Shufflemaster has people "who like to play with stuff" /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Regards,

Rick

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
I heard a rumor that the guy who owns the patent won't give it up (or something to that effect) and that the rooms have to lease out those machines for some ridiculous amount. This might be true, might be total BS, I don't really know. Anyone who could elaborate (in great detail of course) please feel free...al

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, the machines are leased but I don't know for how much. My guess is that Shufflemaster makes a tidy amount. But to use an overused cliché, it's a "win win situation". You really get extra hands per hour, a more up-tempo game, less dealer abuse, less workmen's comp (fewer carpel tunnel type claims), and other pluses that escape me now (I'm beyond exhaustion tonight, always a good time to write /images/graemlins/smile.gif ).

Regards,

Rick

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
An in a rare case of self-control, after a long silent pregnant pause I said nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

You remain one of my favorite forum mystery men, but I can't imagine a Louie Landale without self-control /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

~ Rick

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
Has anyone at the bike put a made-up deck in the machine, then taken it out and spread it? Then continued the process? The reason I ask is that there was a belief among bridge players in the 50's and 60's that if you shuffled a deck more than six times, it started to come back together. There's an MIT site (I can't seem to find it) that did some experiments on this and concluded the same thing.

I like to "play" with stuff. Has anyone at the Bike sat down and played with a machine and made any interesting observations?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually the MIT study concluded that a deck is as randomly shuffled as it will ever be at somewhere between six and seven riffle shuffles. Not that the deck begins to revert back to it's original setup after so many shuffles.

Dr. Perci Diaconis and Dr. Bayer have done some interesting papers about shuffling.

Here is a quote from them:

"By saying that the deck is completely mixed after seven shuffles, Dr.
Diaconis and Dr. Bayer mean that every arrangement of the 52 cards is equally
likely or that any card is as likely to be in one place as in another.

The cards do get more and more randomly mixed if a person keeps on shuffling
more than seven times, but seven shuffles is a transition point, the first time
that randomness is close. Additional shuffles do not appreciably alter things."

Here is a good beginning link Shuffling (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/winning_number.html)

[Wake up CALL]

And here is the famous paper by Perci Diaconis that shows the proof behind the seven shuffle theoreum:

Seven Shuffle Proof (http://www.suffecool.net/shuffling.html)

[Eihli]

8 perfect shuffles puts a deck back in it's original order. that's all i know.

[nickpepper]

[Phat Mack]

Thanks for publishing the links, they were what I was seeking.

Not that the deck begins to revert back to it's original setup after so many shuffles.

I've noticed that when shuffling two stacks of different-colored chips, they can revert to color after a set number of shuffles. I don't know if individual chips are in their original place, however. It might be fun to program something to emulate this.

[Dov]

If you do 7 perfect riffle shuffles in a row, the cards will return their original positions.

[David Steele]

It is true and you all should have known about it. David
Sklansky told us to buy the stock on these forums years
ago and those that looked into SHFL made a nice profit so far.

D.

[RyanTheMick]

[censored] spamming mother-fucker

[MaxPower]

The machines are made by Shufflemaster a public corporation based in Vegas. They also sell most of the autoshufflers used in the table games and they sell a number of popular table games such as 3-Card poker.

The do lease the shufflers, but it is a good deal for the casinos. The casinos deal more hands per hour and are able to rake more. They are generating enough extra revenue to pay for the shufflers and increase their profit.

If they were leasing it for a ridiculous amount, the casinos would not buy them because their would be little benefit.

Why would someone give up a patent? That wouldn't make much sense.

[Louie Landale]

A card may be in any of the 52 positions is NOT a particularly good definition of a "good random shuffle": if you once cut a deck featuring a cut of 0 through 51 cards, the deck has satisfied that definition but nobody will think its suffled well. A much more useful definition will discuss the likelyhood that cards that started as neibors are not necissarily still neibors.

The "every arrangement of 52 cards" is a better criteria for a "good random shuffle".

- Louie

[Louie Landale]

That discussion doesn't seem to take into account a key feature of shuffling: how many cards are in each group that gets interleaved: if I cut the deck at exactly 26 and then "riffle" each half with exactly 13 cards each, its going to take more than 7 shuffles to randomize the deck. Similarly if the cut it exactly in half and then riffle 26 groups of 1 card each, you could predict the outcome, thus losing the desirable "random" feature of a "good suffled deck".

I have no idea what a "perfect" suffling algorithm is, but I'm sure it features some randomness of how many cards are in each half of the deck, and also features some randomness on how many cards are in each riffle-group. And large riffle-groups are a lot less likely than small riffle-groups (6 cards are a LOT less likely than 1 card).

- Louie

[Cazz]

I have *heard* they rent for $300-$400 a month and that may include maintance. One casino near me installed them
on 4 of their tables. They said they started w/ 4
to try them out and they were usually had about 4
full tables in the daytime in the middle of the week.

They have a (max) $3 rake, so 3-5 extra hands an hour would
be $10+/hours extra profit. It should pay the
rent in under 30 hours.

[rogue]

I heard Canterbury made Shufflemaster a deal they couldn't refuse to buy the machines, even though they are not for sale. Supposedly for $10,000 each.