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Shuffling In Poker and Random Number Generation

Poker is proof that an 18th century game can become even more popular - online. You’ll find national and international poker tournaments such as the Poker Open and World Series of Poker played to huge audiences, the year around. It’s a staple in casinos. Many friends gather each Friday night for a regular game of poker.

For those who play online - the elimination of heckling, and noxious cigarette fumes makes playing virtual poker in the privacy of ones’ home, ideal.

The draw poker, five-card stud, two and three-card Manila, Omaha - these are some variations of the game of poker. Their similarity lies in the fact that all these players’ place bets on their cards. The winner is the one with the highest ranking hand. With the real opportunity to lose or gain a fortune present, how is the integrity of the game kept? By shuffling. After each game the entire 52 deck of cards are shuffled or mixed up to ensure all the cards have an equal chance of being drawn.

Keep in mind that shuffling the cards is merely simulated presentation. What the program does is erase the memory of the used cards as well as to have a record of the cards that have been used. Mathematical research has uncovered the fact that a minimum of seven shuffling of the cards must be done to ensure the card placements are truly random. Whether one shuffles a real deck of cards or play virtual poker, randomness is a decisive component of the game.

In the game of poker a real deck of card has approximately 52 or 2^226 shuffles or patterns. The same applies to virtual poker. When the computer or the RNG shuffles the virtual deck of cards, it chooses from these same possible patterns. In virtual poker, shuffling or randomness is accomplished with the use of specially created microprocessors. These microprocessors don’t operate Word or Excel programs. Instead, the chips generate random numbers. This specially created microchip is called RNG or Random Number Generation. RNG is a critical component of these kinds of online games.

How does the RNG work? With the use of algorithms. These are problem-solving procedures, which consists of sets of rules and limited number of solutions or steps to solve a specific problem.

For an algorithm to achieve randomness, it must have the following:

• Exactness - no card appears more than once.
• No bias - Refers to the fact that the player doesn’t know source of the random number of the RNG. This means regardless of the X number of cards in left in the deck, the player’s ability to pick any remains at 1/N.
• Not predictable - The observer is not able to predict the next cards drawn.

What are the different kinds of RNG that are specifically written for shuffling poker? To minimize security breaches most online casinos won’t tell you what kind of algorithm they use for their RNG. But for those that do, these are the two most common algorithms. Renowned computer scientist Donald Ervin Knuth popularized both these algorithms.

For the first algorithm, the RNG assigns a random number to each of the 52 cards. To achieve randomness, these cards are arranged based on their assigned random numbers.

The second, called the Knuth shuffle, involves moving through the pack from top to bottom. Then each card is swapped with another card from any position of the pack, to get a random number.

There is only rule for RNG is shuffling poker. The source of the random number, which is the input for the algorithm must remain unknown, to ensure results truly stay random.