Re: Card Playing Protocol? (fwd)

[Arsen Ray Arachelian <rarachel@prism.poly.edu>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 01:19:02 -0400 (GMT+4:00)
From: Arsen Ray Arachelian <rarachel@prism.poly.edu>
To: "Roy M. Silvernail" <roy@sendai.cybrspc.mn.org>
Subject: Re: Card Playing Protocol?



On Wed, 20 Jul 1994, Roy M. Silvernail wrote:

> The effect could be different.  I use i there because I want to traverse
> the deck from one end to the other, and exchange each card with a
> randomly selected card from the unprocessed remainder.  This algorithm
> goes back to my 8-bit days, when speed was everything.  Although some
> cards might be handled twice (probably about 35%, but I haven't done the
> math), each position in the deck is filled only once (except the last
> one, which is forced from the other 53).
> 
> A card in position X will, in its turn, be moved to a random position
> between itself and one end of the deck.  But that card is also subject
> to being 'picked from behind' when an earlier card is exchanged.  So any
> given card may end up on either side of its beginning location.
> 
> But I think there's something to what you're saying.  I can't articulate
> it, but I get a sense that the single-pass algorithm might have a
> definable shape

The issue is this:  at the start a card has a 1/54 chance of being swapped
with >ANY< card.  The second card has a chance of 1/53 of being swapped
with >ANY< card, the third, a chance of 1/52... the 50th card has a chance
of 1/4, ... the 53rd card has a 1/2 chance of being swaped with the last
card or remains in its place (swapped with itself.)

So what I'm getting at is that the cards at one end of the deck have more
"mobility" than the cards in the other end of the deck.  The 1st cards
have a more spread out distribution so they have LESS of a chance of being
swapped out with the cards at the back of the deck.  The cards at the back
of the deck have a very tight space from which to be swapped. Therein lies
the problem of sorting.  As for SPEED, in the eight bit days, it would be
faster to do a MOD with a CONSTANT number than with a variable.  Why? 
Because the compiler can find ways of optimizing the MOD via right shifts
and substractions rather than using repeated substraction alone.

There was some challenge somewhere to come up with ways of dividing
numbers via shifting and substraction some time ago.  I'm sure the
division for 54 is faster than a general integer divide by substraction. 
It's hard to figure out how to divide by 54 via shifting, however, it
would do wonders for an eight bit machine. These days, some machines have
integer/floating division right in the CPU that's just as fast or almost
as fast.  With FPU's, even faster than shifting. :-)

Let's see... how do I break 54 down.... hmmm..  Okay, if we trash the
jokers it becomes easier:  52/4 == 52>>2.  This equals 13.  Now 13 being a
prime can't be divided...  I guess this is one way of looking at the card
value and stripping off the suite.  However, having divided by 4, you
saved yourself four times the work already.

So you take your picked card C and substract C>>2 from it.  If the result
is positive, you've got a remainder to a division by 4.  You then
substract 13 until you would get a negative value if you did one more
substraction.  The left over value is the mod 54 (I think.  Someone
correct me if I'm wrong.)

Anyhow, this is moot as you don't need to do this by hand anymore anyway.. :-)
Besides, if you want to cheat a bit, you can always take lrand() &0x0000003F
which would give you a range from 0 to 63, and if you should get a value
larger than 53, you substract 54 from it. :-)  Since all you want is a
random number from 0 to 53, it doesn't much matter.  I guarantee that this
is faster than division on most of the common machines anyway. :-)

> An interesting thought.  Guessing a card's location is pretty tough,
> though.  I was thinking more of seasoned players noticing the absence of
> patterns they had become accustomed to.  I know I saw some definite
> trends when I was an avid Cribbage player.

Yes, but an AI could also be trained with these patterns.  A neural
network attached to a tracking engine that keeps track of his hand and
guesses at his opponents hand and the "odds" of what cards can come up
next against the odds of what he needs to win with isn't easy, but if done
right, it can prove a formidable opponent for the beginer poker player. :-)

It would be matched by seasoned players undoubtedly.  However, what I'm
getting to here is an automated digital cash paying/payed casio dealer. 
That is you could set up a telnet site where others can gamble against
your computer.  (I'll leave the legalities of this to others :-)  If this
machine is done the right way, even with mental poker and even if it can't
cheat you, it's still a very good card shark.  You could charge say, half
a ghostmark or whatever per 10 games just to play, plus a minimum bet of
one ghostmark per hand with doubling/raising/etc being allowed.

Hell, if you really want to get sick, you can have the AI keep databases
of the player's past patterns and how he ticks.  Unless players use random
anonymous packet bouncers, such AI's could be properly used to run a real
cypherspace <g> casino.  I'm sure if we look up some mobsters and give
them this idea they'd be happy to implement it once digital cash appears
in wide use.

Of course we're talking about ten years in the future, or never if digi
cash never makes it...

Don't however think that this can't be done.  There are chess games that
"think" ahead.  If programmed with the right set of fuzzy rules and given
extensive databases as to the opponents past moves/prefrences/bluffs/etc,
such an AI would be a great card shark.

Of course our player may decide to write a better auto-player and have it
play against another AI. :-)  But hey, if we're going to have smart
agents, their owners can be "backers" as there are for real gamblers out
there already. :-)

> In poker, each hand gets a fresh shuffle.  Blackjack will exhaust the
> deck to a certain point and then shuffle.  Depending on the house,

Yep.. the reason I asked was because in high school we played by almost no
rules. We'd have games where the "odd" numbered cards were wild, picture
cards wild, etc.... shit like that was common place...  I guess it's
bastardisation, but hey, it was fun and not for money.  And we didn't
reshuffle often.

BTW: Idea to prevent dealer cheating while shuffling the deck: Alice
Builds the deck from Ace of Spades to King o'Diamonds, encrypts it,
shuffles it herself, passes it to Bob, who shuffles it again, and encrypts
it, then passes it to Alice who picks her hand, etc.

If the cards are shuffled between every hands, this would prevent an AI
from keeping tack of the odds of unplayed cards.