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Old 12-20-2006, 04:08 AM
Rick Nebiolo Rick Nebiolo is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 6,634
Default Re: No such thing as a random card/number generator

Kathy,

I connected to this thread because you responded to a thread regarding must moves at the Wynn on the B&M forum. Overuse of must moves is one of my favorite rants and it usually grabs my attention among these 57 odd forums.

Anyway, years ago I played Planet Poker when it was the only online game in town. Turns out they used a single seed into their RNG based on an offset from the atomic clock. In addition, their shuffling algorithm was very shoddy and published online. A computer security company saw this and quickly created software to show every darn card your opponents held (after about a ten minute tune up). They actually had a clip that made it to CNN and at one point contacted me for my input (as to whether I thought I was cheated).

Turns out there were people cheating and PP refunded me about $340.

Today the shuffling algorithms are much better and the seeds into the RNGs are far more complex (essentially based on user entropy, e.g. where in a 50x100 pixel box you click call/fold/raise) . But that doesn't mean you don't have anything to worry about.

For a well thought through article regarding online problems read former 2+2 author Ed Miller aka the NPA's blog.

~ Rick
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