Why does the bike require the dealer to ask permission to scramble?

[AlienBoy]

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Good post, AB -- you justified a comment that initially seemed like gambler's superstition.

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Thanks - I hope no one thinks *I'm* superstitious (that would be a laugh if you knew my position on religion and superstitions)! It's not superstition, but skepticism.


Really wish I could get a *used* (i.e. worn) deckmate for testing this - I have little doubt a brand new, properly aligned machine works as advertised - but after 24/7 operation, and lots of moving parts, I have to believe the gripper mechanism is the weak link here.


Cheers

AB

[RR]

[ QUOTE ]
Really wish I could get a *used* (i.e. worn) deckmate for testing this - I have little doubt a brand new, properly aligned machine works as advertised - but after 24/7 operation, and lots of moving parts, I have to believe the gripper mechanism is the weak link here.

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These machines receive a lot of maintenance (when I worked as a shift supervisor I was on a first name basis with the guy that came out and worked on them and we only had them on 2 tables). Also I believe if the gripper was worn to a point where it wasn't working properly the machine would red light because it would count the cards incorrectly. I don't know much about these machines, I am just speculating from using them and having many conversations with the guy that would come out to fix them.

[jjshabado]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Really wish I could get a *used* (i.e. worn) deckmate for testing this - I have little doubt a brand new, properly aligned machine works as advertised - but after 24/7 operation, and lots of moving parts, I have to believe the gripper mechanism is the weak link here.

[/ QUOTE ]

These machines receive a lot of maintenance (when I worked as a shift supervisor I was on a first name basis with the guy that came out and worked on them and we only had them on 2 tables). Also I believe if the gripper was worn to a point where it wasn't working properly the machine would red light because it would count the cards incorrectly. I don't know much about these machines, I am just speculating from using them and having many conversations with the guy that would come out to fix them.

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Yeah, it seems to me that there's too much money invested in these and its too easy to detect wear that this scenario would be accounted for.

Does anybody know if there are diagnostics that are run on them on a regular basis?

[psandman]

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Somewhere I read that "riffle riffle cut riffle" does a poor job of randomization, and that scrambling the deck is the best way to manually randomize.

Theoretically a deckmate should work well to re-distribute cards - my question/contention is that mechanical wear in the gripper results in the gap being located in other than the CPU determined location.

AB

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As i understand the way these things work (and this may be a simplistic explanation) a RNG determines which of an extely large number of patterns the machine will use on a given "shuffle" Then the mechanism "pushes" the cards out of the deck into a new pile in that order until all cards have been pushed into the pile constituing the "shuffled" deck. (Example the randomly determined pattern calls for the machine to push out the card that is third from the bottom then the card that is 19th from the bottom then the card that is 12 from the bottom etc.)

As such if the mechanism fails to push out the proper cards (for example when it is to push out the 13th card from the bottom it mistakenly pushes out the 14th card from the bottom) it still is going to create un unpredictable deck for the reason that the original selected pattern is still unpredictable so moving one off from that pattern does not change the predictabilty.

Now, if the problem is that instead of pushing out a single card it pushes out a clump of cards that raises issues about the predicitibility because if a player were to have knowledge of clumps of cards being together when they went in the machine, he may recognize clumps of cards coming out.ut this is the sort of mistake thatwould cause the machine to alert the dealer that the card count was off, or otherwise jam the machine.

[GHL]

I work in IT as a programmer for over a deckade aand have had some dealings with mechanical things like check readers, bar code scanners etc... now this has nothing to do with deck shufflers...

But what I do know is programmers are obsessed with things like counts. Check digits in account #s... hidden things in the bar code... and other stuff like that. I find it hard to believe that if the CPU decides to cut the deck at the 1/4 inch mark or some other "place" in the deck that it would know how many cards fit on each side of the cut... and I would be shocked if it could not estimate/count this.

[RR]

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Does anybody know if there are diagnostics that are run on them on a regular basis?

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They have a little self test that runs when they are powered on. Most palces leave them on all the time, but it still gets run when they come to clean them etc.

[pfapfap]

Wait wait wait... did I read this right? A dealer said he saw too many suited flops in a down while using a shuffler, and therefore felt they weren't shuffling well? Am I the only one to whom this makes no sense whatsoever? I'm assuming there wasn't a new setup every hand...

For what it's worth, I recently did my standard riffle riffle box riffle cut with a spaded deck, then spread it, and I was a little surprised at how "random" it looked. Add to this that usually I scramble first, and I no longer have any worries about my shuffle. Next time I get the chance (and if I remember), I'll put a spaded deck into a shuffler and spread it to see how it looks.

I do find it highly amusing that a reason a low-limit player will ask for a scramble is because s/he's getting similar hands over and over. This is downright illogical. But then, I love those players. They're usually the ones that will request seat changes because of a hot/cold seat (ie, not for position over somebody), too. Mmm, chips, tasty and nutritious. But I careen off topic. Carry on.

[youtalkfunny]

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(Example the randomly determined pattern calls for the machine to push out the card that is third from the bottom then the card that is 19th from the bottom then the card that is 12 from the bottom etc.)

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The bottom card always gets pushed "through the ringer". Note that the deck is sitting on spinning rollers, which shoot the bottom card into the "shuffled" pile.

AB says that there is a "grabber", which I suppose lifts up a clump of cards, creating a slot for the next card to arrive.

[psandman]

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[ QUOTE ]
(Example the randomly determined pattern calls for the machine to push out the card that is third from the bottom then the card that is 19th from the bottom then the card that is 12 from the bottom etc.)

[/ QUOTE ]

The bottom card always gets pushed "through the ringer". Note that the deck is sitting on spinning rollers, which shoot the bottom card into the "shuffled" pile.

AB says that there is a "grabber", which I suppose lifts up a clump of cards, creating a slot for the next card to arrive.

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Okay I don't know the specifics of the mechanism, but the principal is the same.

[AlienBoy]

The DeckMate patent (6,651,982) can be viewed here:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parse...RS=PN/6,651,982



The cards go in the input box, and one at a time are moved to the output elevator. The cards are counted as the move from input to output.

The elevator moves the cards in the output box to a position near the gripper.

The gripper clinches the cards within its grasp, then the elevator lowers with the un-grasped cards.

This creates a gap between two sets of cards, the upper cards held by the gripper, and the lower cards held by the elevator.

Then one card is shot into the gap by the urethane wheels from the input box.

The elevator moves back up, the gripper releases, the elevator moves to a new position, and the process repeats.

The elevator position is controlled by the microcontroller, and the position that it moves up and where the gripper grips is what determines where the next gap for card insertion occurs.

Having said that:

If the gripper is not gripping, then all cards remain on the elevator regardless of what position it was set to by the CPU, and the cards from the input box are merely shot onto the top of the stack of cards in the elevator.




Like I said, I have not pulled apart an actual machine - but looking at the patent it does not appear much more complicated than that.

There is this statement:

"By adding an encoder to the motor or motors driving the elevator, and by sensing the presence of groups of suspended cards, the MPU can compare the data representing the commands and the resulting movements to verify a shuffle has occurred. In the absence of this verification, the shuffler can send a signal to the display to indicate a misdeal, to a central pit computer to notify management of the misdeal, to a game table computer, if any with an output display to notify the dealer of a misdeal, to a central computer that notifies security, to a central system for initiating maintenance calls or combinations of the above. "


But it is unclear if this indicates that any specific number of cards are held by the gripper at any one time. I fact it appears as if it may be "one or none" sensing, (the body of the patent seems to only discuss sensing for the purpose of finding the position of the top of the stack, though it should be noted that patents do not necessarily disclose potentially unrelated or newer improvements to a device).




AB