Shuffling at sites

Henry17 · #1 10-01-2007, 09:31 AM

If someone uses continuous shuffle then odds are they are using a PRNG to generate the random numbers.

Daddy Warbucks · #2 10-01-2007, 09:33 AM

Why?

Henry17 · #3 10-01-2007, 09:40 AM

Because using a TRNG with continuous shuffle would be very demanding on resources. There is nothing preventing them but it is just very unlikely since the whole point of using continuous shuffle is to make a PNRG act like a TRNG.

Daddy Warbucks · #4 10-01-2007, 09:45 AM

Very demanding on resources? How processor intensive do you think it is to take an input and generate a TRNG from it? FWIW, i'm pretty sure no sites use a PRNG since the Planet Poker debacle.

Henry17 · #5 10-01-2007, 10:09 AM

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what continuous shuffle means. The way I understood it continuous shuffle means that the next card to be dealt is being repetitively re-generated thus adding entropy based on duration of hand and increasing randomness. As such a PRNG would act very much like a TRNG.

If a site is going to use TRNG to generate every card I don't see the benefit over them just choosing from the ~8E67 possible orderings from the outset and having a predetermined ordering before anything is dealt.

The issue with Planet Poker and PRNG doesn't really apply to continuous shuffling. The issue was that they were limiting the orderings to a fraction of the possible orderings.

Henry17 · #6 10-01-2007, 10:15 AM

That post from the Stars employ led me to check Party's site and they do mention how they "seed" thus they are using a PRNG.