No more ASMs at Borgota

[aslan]

Did anyone notice or write about the fact that there are no more ASMs at the Borgata. I asked the PC and he told me that it is just too expensive. As you probably know, you can't buy these machines, you have to rent them. I countered that wouldn't it pay to get a couple of rounds in while the hand shufflers would still be shuffling? He replied that it doesn't save much time.

Personally, I hate the wait, but OTOH I have had more luck with hand shuffled shoes than machine shuffled. Is there any real difference? I'm thinking the machines give you a more random shuffle, but I don't know.

[Thunder]

Without question they give you a more random shuffle. I don't really mind that much because this allows you to take a bathroom break without missing any hands if you're quick enough.

[aslan]

Originally Posted by Thunder

Without question they give you a more random shuffle. I don't really mind that much because this allows you to take a bathroom break without missing any hands if you're quick enough.

I would think that a hand shuffle, because it is not as random, would be more likely to strongly favor one side or the other (house/player) depending on how the cards clump. That being the case, you might get real lucky even in negative counts, or vice versa, but we are protected by a wonging out strategy. I have had shoes where I won nearly every hand, but I don't think that occurs as often, if ever, in a machine shuffled shoe. In a machine shuffled shoe, I expect the usual is being dealt a ten and a small card, an occurence that I do not welcome. Two tens or two small cards usually works out better for me anyway. If they clump too much you get rounds where everyone has two tens except one or two who have a blackjack. I hate it when the dealer also has one or the other at the same time. Conversely, you get hands where the dealer draws 6 or 7 cards to a perfect 21. That is equally hateful.

[Blue Efficacy]

There is a voodoo forum for this type of discussion

Although in my experiences good shoes are more likely to produce subsequent good shoes with hand shuffle. Same with bad ones. Although this is surely just selective memory or chance occurance.

[aslan]

Originally Posted by Blue Efficacy

There is a voodoo forum for this type of discussion

Although in my experiences good shoes are more likely to produce subsequent good shoes with hand shuffle. Same with bad ones. Although this is surely just selective memory or chance occurance.

Yeah, I wonder if it is voodoo. I have had the same experience, but it could be coincidence. I wonder if there are any books out on the subject of shuffling and its consequences.

[aslan]

... it takes about 7 random riffle shuffles to randomize a deck of 52 cards. This means that after 7 shuffles, every configuration is nearly equally likely.

An amazing fact is that five random riffle shuffles are not enough to randomize a deck of cards, because not only is every configuration not nearly equally likely, there are in fact some configurations which are not reachable in 5 shuffles! http://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ffiles/20001.4-6.shtml

[aslan]

Anyone ever heard this one? Unreal.

...[a] series of perfect riffle shuffles, where the deck is cut exactly in the middle and cards are perfectly interleaved, are not interesting. This is because 8 consecutive perfect riffle shuffles will restore a standard 52-deck to its original order! http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~harald2/markov.pdf

[DownUnderWonder]

There has been work done on this stuff. As I recall, if unshuffled cards are just loaded back into the shoe and played again, it provides an advantage to the player, but even minimal shuffling reduces this to random shuffle levels.

It is true that 8 perfect riffles will leave a 52 card deck in its original order (provided the top and bottom cards stay in position throughout) but perfect riffles are very rare and doing less riffles will mix them up quite a bit. The average offset in a series of riffle shuffles between two cards that started together is 2^n where n is the number of riffles. Are ASMs more random? probably, but I wouldnt say thats a good thing. There is no difference in advantage from a deck order point of view between ASMs and hand shuffles, but hand shuffles do provide an opportunity for tracking and sequencing.