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BGonline.org Forums
Diaconis on Randomness
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: Diaconis on Randomness (Chuck Bower)
Date: Saturday, 25 May 2013, at 7:01 p.m.
Just to be clear, the only part of the bridge discussion that I linked to that I thought was relevant was the part below. Admittedly it's not much, but I just want to make sure we're not getting distracted by whatever other nonsense there might have been in the discussion.
I have found that someone did perform an experiment somewhat similar to the one I suggested.
It involved 1,300 deals at Whitney and Abingdon bridge clubs back in the 1990s (allegedly).
The conclusion ?
IF (big if), IF players perform "one light hand-over-hand shuffle" before returning their hand to the tray, as I suggested they should in my earlier post, then the normal cursory shuffling, followed by a one-at-a-time deal, will produce hand frequencies that conform reasonably to theoretical expectations of random deals.
If players do not do this, then the hands will be noticeably flatter than theoretical expectation, with voids and 7-card suits noticeably rarer.
They actually conducted the experiment to test this hypothesis, comparing Whitney to Abingdon.
The authors concluded that TDs should remind players to perform such a quick shuffle, and that they should put the hand in upside-down after playing the last board to show that they have.
I don't know what others thought of these experimenters and their conclusions.
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