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Topic: Shuffling (Read 442 times) |
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rmsgrey
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In a certain (trademarked) trading card game, players play aginst each other with packs of at least 60 cards, of which around 40% are functionally identical represent a basic resource, and can only be played one per turn, and the remaining 60% can only be played if sufficient resource cards have been played. Obviously, failing to draw enough of the resource cards to enable you to play the non-resource cards is going to lose you the game. Similarly, since the resource cards do not directly work towards winning the game, drawing too many of them, by reducing the number of non-resource cards you draw will also tend to lose you the game.
In organised tournaments, your opponent is allowed to cut your deck (actually, he's allowed to shuffle, but most players settle for a cut), meaning that the distribution of cards through your deck has to be more or less symmetrical on a large-scale
As a result, the ideal is for the resource cards to end up more or less evenly distributed through the deck of cards at the start of each game, and having runs of more than 4-5 resource cards is generally disastrous. The trouble is that the resource cards get separated from the non-resource cards during play, so at the end of the game, you have 3 piles of cards - the portion of your deck you didn't draw, a pile of resource cards and a pile of non-resource cards. To compensate for this segregation, a dubious practice known as "resource-weaving" has arisen, whereby the resource cards are inserted evenly throughout the non-resource pile before shuffling for the next game.
There are two common schools of thought on "resource-weaving". The first holds that, since your deck should be thoroughly randomised by your shuffling, it's at best a waste of time, and at worst a deliberate attempt to cheat, worthy of disqualification. The second holds that it's an accepted practice, everyone does it, and it's a way for poor shufflers to not be penalised so heavily.
My ponderings on the subject have thrown up a third possibility: since "resource-weaving" is an idealised form of shuffle, it seems that it could reduce the number of shuffles required to randomise the deck.
The question is, am I right?
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towr
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Re: Shuffling
« Reply #1 on: Oct 8th, 2004, 3:58am » |
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If the resource cards are functionally identical, then that part doesn't really need any shuffling (the order of the subset doesn't matter).
The non-resource cards on the other hand probably aren't functionally identical, and so order is important and this subset needs to be randomized more.
So to reduce the amount of shuffling, and still get a well randomized deck, it would make sense to first shuffle that part independantly, and then weave the two sets together. And shuffling a wee bit more for good measure. (Because the distribution of resource and non-resource cards through the deck does matter, and a perfect interwoven deck given you an unfair advantage)
In practice, non-weaving probably allows you to keep better track of the order of non-resource cards, giving you an opportunity to guess which will come next. It's harder to keep cards in order while shuffling when they are further apart.
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