How Random are Cards Really Dealt?

[gumpzilla]

As I said before, using the pseudorandom generators is a practical concession to the annoyance of generating really random numbers. That said, if you have a pseudorandom number generator with such a huge range for seeds, what predictive power do you have? If the RNG is broken and can only make use of 128 bits of seed, you have a point, but if it can use 2000 bits of seed and actually produce different streams of numbers, then I don't see the problem.

There are posts from RGP back in the day where people took a sample of 50,000 or 100,000 hands and subjected them to analysis to see how often hand distribution, expected win percentages, etc. held up. Obviously that's not a huge sample, but the numbers were all pretty close to what you'd theoretically expect. At the very least, it's some evidence to corroborate the theory that everything is peachy with the RNG. It would be nice to see what the "shuffling audit" that you see places talk about occasionally actually consists of. I looked at Paradise, but all I saw was a piece of PriceWaterhouseCooper stationery that essentially said, "Yep, it's random!"

Until I see a similar amount of evidence pointing to flaws in the random number generator, I'm going to continue thinking it's okay.

[schwza]

i believe ub is truly random as it uses quantum mechanical measurements which are, at least according to current theory, true random. there is also another layer of randomness added in (which i would be willing to call random, but not sure of technical definition) that uses some algorithm based on the mouse movements of 000's of players. might be stars, now that i think about it. do a search, this gets discussed ~1/month.

[six_4off]

I do know what you are saying. How many times do flops look eerily similar to the one on the other tables that you are playing. It happens constantly. I did also see a bit on the Travel Channel on haw Random Number Generators are not completly random. I do not think that this is intentional by whatever the company in question is. I just think its a flaw in the system.

Thats just my 2 cent.

6 4

[JC_Saves]

This article talks about actual numbers over 100,000+ hands versus expected results at Poker Stars. It is very interesting data on randomness. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]


http://www.recpoker.com/index.php?se...&order=dsc

[johnsmith]

this was a few years ago but...

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/ent...11070_616221_1

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
any computer generated card dealing program can never be random due to the nonrandomness of the RNG (random number generator),

[/ QUOTE ]
That statement is incorrect. Poker sites use hardware devices for random number generation, which are truly random.

[KenProspero]

Off point, but not really.

I once saw a story about someone who had won the lottery twice. The analysis in the story, was that the odds of this happening were so staggering as to be beyond belief.

The follow-up (where I found it) was by someone versed in statistics, who essentially said by making fairly conservative assumptions, over a given number of years (10 or 20, I don't remember) it was almost inevitable that a multiple lottery winner would occur.

My point -- given the large number of hands that most of us see, it's fairly certain that lot's of wierd stuff will show up, and, in fact the absence of strange coincidences would be more convincing proof that a system was 'non-random'.

[Tim H]

they do ? how do you know that

[PrayingMantis]

I saw a guy bluffing all-in against a slow-played pocket AA on the flop the other day, with an unimproved 97o. He became short-stacked, and the next hand pushed all-in with 97o. Someone else called with AA. This is a much better evidence for non-randomness. In other words: "unreal".

P.S. I find it hard to believe that people who think that if they are dealt the same hand on two different tables or whatever, the deal is non-random, can actually play good poker. OTOH, Doyle was talking about "rushes", so what do I know.

[Jonathan]

[ QUOTE ]
This article talks about actual numbers over 100,000+ hands versus expected results at Poker Stars. It is very interesting data on randomness. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]


http://www.recpoker.com/index.php?se...&order=dsc

[/ QUOTE ]
JC this link doesnt work for me....its just takes you to rec.gambling.poker and not to the article.

Could you try posting another link directly to the article?
I'd like to read it.

Thanks,
joanthan