Randomness

[JOHNY CA$H]

Same cards. I think you're thinking too much here.

[RustyBrooks]

If you do exactly the same shuffle, you end up with exactly the same card ordering. We'rein magic movie land here people.

Obviously you affect the situation if you cause anything to go differently, which obviously you will. You have as many days as you want to get it right though, so no problem.

[Poker Clif]

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When a poker hand is dealt the event is supposedly random and not dependant on outside variables.

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Really? It's not dependent on the starting conditions of the deck? We're assuming that everyone will do everything in the exact same way as before, and that, I assume all starting conditions are precisely the same, so, you'll get the same shuffles, etc.

Deals are random because we don't know the initial conditions, nor do we know what events will be applied to the deck - how many shuffles, how thorough, etc.

Even electronic shuffles/deals aren't really truly random in the grand scheme of things, they're just dependent on variables we don't have access to. Computer random number generators are predictable given knowledge of the starting conditions, in some cases, unless the random number generator is powered by a pretty reliable source of randomness (some are. I guess major poker sites, etc, probably employ devices to provide randomness, like from thermal noise or some such stuff)

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(Edited to include details on the random number generator used by PokerStars, instead of more general information)

Here is part of the information on PokerStars.com concerning their random number generator. There are more layers to ensure randomness that aren't included, but this is the basic setup:

"...we are using two independent sources of truly random data.

user input, including summary of mouse movements and events timing, collected from client software

true random number generator developed by Intel, which uses thermal noise as an entropy source

Each of these sources itself generates enough entropy to ensure a fair and unpredictable shuffle."