We can debate all day the psychological factors that play in to how you play. But until we know the pseudo random number generator algorithm that dictates shuffling, we cannot say one way or another that shuffles -- what we call "luck" -- are random.
Luck does come and go in streaks ... and I would love to be convinced otherwise
3 years later and I'm still not convinced.
I don't understand. We know that computers are not truly random; so it is using a pseudo-random number generator. But while such a thing could theoretically create detectable patterns in the random number being generated, there's no reason that the detectable pattern in that number would correlate to a detectable pattern in good/bad things happening to you during a game. It's not like a game involving dice where you always want higher numbers, and rolling low means you are unlucky. The generator giving a "10" one time might mean your important card misses the shuffle; while a "10" the next time might mean your cards lined up perfectly. As the game state changes; the random number you hope to get from the generator changes. So there's no way that any pattern in the randomness from the programming point of view would result in an unusual numbers of wins or losses due to luck.
Good point. But hypothetically, say it works like the following (it doesn't, but as a thought experiment):
Say the 'quality' of a shuffle can be enumerated, and ordered. So like, of the 12! = 479001600 ways to arrange your 12 cards after your first shuffle (it's less than that but I don't know maths - the number is arbitrary), each arrangement got a number between 1 and 479001600 indicating the 'quality' of the shuffle. E.g. after opening Chapel/Silver, this shuffle:
<--- bottom top --->
Copper | Copper
| Silver | Copper | Copper | Copper | Copper
| Copper | Estate | Estate | Estate | Chapel
is closer to 479001600, while this shuffle:
<--- bottom top --->
Silver | Chapel
| Copper | Copper | Copper | Estate | Estate
| Copper | Copper | Copper | Copper | Estate
is closer to 0. Then say ShiT chooses a random number between 0 and 479001600 and that's the shuffle you get. Then I'd hypothesize that that number isn't random. I'd say there are streaks when it gives you a lot of numbers close to 0, and streaks when it gives you a lot of numbers close to 479001600. And not just random streaks, but statistically significant and/or predictable streaks.
At least that's how it
feels to me sometimes. There's obviously no way this is how it works. If ShiT knew the difference between good and bad shuffles then I'm sure it would have a better computer opponent than it does. And even then, it still depends on the kingdom, player order, your opponent's shuffle, game theory stuff, etc. At the end of the day I don't doubt it's all just psychology at play. But I'm still curious what ShiT's RNG is.
