"I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse
Norm is always so modest. I am not going to toot his horn but I will just say you are lecturing one of the top experts in this field. His blackjack software is generally recognized as the best in the field. He is consulted by the best out there. Don't embarrass yourself more by acting like you can school him.
Well, if you don't believe me, would you believe Diaconis himself? From http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene...does_the_trick
But now Diaconis and his colleagues are issuing an update. When dealing many gambling games, like blackjack, about four shuffles are enough. The reason for the lower number is that many games require randomness for only a few specific aspects of the cards, not all. In blackjack, for example, suits don’t matter. Diaconis and his collaborators extended the earlier analysis to account for these variations.
"I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse
Thought the same and flipped through TOB a couple of hours ago and couldn't find it. I can't remember if he was talking about the number of good riffles to randomize, or the number of perfect riffles to bring a deck back to the exact same start. There was an interesting discussion on perfect in-shuffles versus perfect out-shuffles started by Cacarulo in the early days of AP.com.
If the top card stays at the top, it is an in-shuffle. If it moves to the second card, it's an out-shuffle. Incidentally, the number of perfect in-shuffles required to return a deck to original state is the multiplicative order of 2 modulo (N + 1) for a deck with N cards (must be even). For out-shuffles, 2 modulo (N - 1). For a 52 card card deck, 52 in-shuffles vs. 8 out-shuffles. (Source Wikipedia)
Last edited by Norm; 02-19-2013 at 09:16 AM.
"I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse
I must MUST agree with Tthree and shout from the rooftops my utter and absolute admiration of Norms modesty, humility, and GENIUS. His work speaks for itself, and I haven't heard anything quite as funny as attempting to "talk over the head" of an individual by quoting the very paper said individual edited!!! PRiCELESS.
“The essence of independence has been to think and act according to standards from within, not without.”
Aleister Crowley
Though I must say, if memory serves me, I just might have been extremely offensive to Mr. W. when I first arrived here on the site. What a TROLL i was...er... am?...sorry Norm if that was/is the case my utmoost apologies.
“The essence of independence has been to think and act according to standards from within, not without.”
Aleister Crowley
The concept is interesting but I believe the calculation of N0 presumes you are playing a defined game with a defined advantage. After all how can you overcome standard deviation with EV when you have no ev. Your ev in the fake money game is 0, as is you N0. In the back counting situation your are continuing in a game with a defined ev, just not playing the hands with negative ev and thereby increasing the game ev and lowering your N0.
If I am wrong or have missed the point please let me know, I will need to get busy playing BJ on my computer.
Stealth
Luck is nothing more than probability taken personally!
What about......using real money and playing at home?? Using real money and playing at the backroom casino down the street? I sense big breakthroughs being made in this thread!!
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