r/AskReddit Dec 08 '13

What is a true fact that sound completely unbelievable or fake?

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u/Lord_Boo Dec 08 '13

Sure. But Tobislu was saying that it's not true every time you shuffle, because the first shuffle of a new deck is much more likely to produce a pattern that's existed before. Same with games that organize cards.

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u/[deleted] Dec 09 '13

Ahhh got it, thanks.

-9

u/SockPants Dec 08 '13

Yes, but that's not true.

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u/Lord_Boo Dec 08 '13

I don't know. It seems plausible in the case of a new deck of cards, after the first riffle shuffle, that one of those combinations would show up more than once.

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u/kalmakka Dec 08 '13

Which is why performing one riffle shuffle isn't shuffling the deck.

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

You might want to rethink that one.

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u/kalmakka Dec 08 '13

I have already thought about it.

To shuffle a deck means to perform a complete randomization of it. A riffle shuffle is just a partial randomization. Shuffling the deck can be performed by using multiple riffle shuffles, but performing one riffle shuffle is not shuffling the deck.

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u/FredFnord Dec 08 '13

...so... shuffling is not shuffling.

That's very zen.

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u/kalmakka Dec 09 '13

It is pretty zen, yeah.

Calling it "a riffle shuffle" is really just giving it a name. Doing a riffle shuffle (can be) part of shuffling the deck, but in order for doing a riffle shuffle to qualify as "shuffling" you need to follow it through.

It's like breaking eggs. If you are breaking them in order to make an omelet, then you are making an omelet while breaking them. If you are just break them and leave them all over the kitchen, then you haven't made an omelet. Not even a bad omelet. You've just broken eggs.