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[Awaclus]

What are some of the best rules mess ups you have never seen?

Here are a couple of my favorites:

 - thinking that you can trash Silver with Moneylender
 - trying to count the cards in your hand when playing Philosopher's Stone

[Chris is me]

I've actually never seen anyone attempt to play a single action four times with multiple Throne Rooms.

[MatthewCA]

Everyone I play with irl has never forgotten about duration cards and discarded them on the first turn they played them. I'm super impressed by that. I thought it was gonna be a huge problem.

[drsteelhammer]

I have heard about someone playing Trading Post once and gaining two Silver in hand.

[werothegreat]

I've actually never seen anyone attempt to play a single action four times with multiple Throne Rooms.

For me, that's because I tell them three times what actually happens before they're allowed to play with the card

[ConMan]

I've never seen anyone take their discard pile and flip it upside down to form their draw deck without shuffling it.

[Awaclus]

I've never seen anyone take their discard pile and flip it upside down to form their draw deck without shuffling it.

That's a pretty classic unseen rules mess up.

[Jimmmmm]

I've never seen someone reveal Trader on an Ironworksed Great Hall expecting to still get +1 Card/+1 Action.

[popsofctown]

I've never seen someone try to buy a Province by selling a 5$ action to the bank for 5$ and adding 3$ worth of treasure to it.

[AJD]

I've never seen someone try to buy a Province by selling a 5$ action to the bank for 5$ and adding 3$ worth of treasure to it.

[J Reggie]

I've never seen someone misread a card and think it was telling them to eat it.

[GendoIkari]

I have heard about someone playing Trading Post once and gaining two Silver in hand.

Wow what an idiot.

[ackmondual]

When you've been Militia-ed again (before it gets to your turn), you need to discard 2 more cards... down to 1 in hand.

[Witherweaver]

I've never seen someone neglect to starve to death in a stalemate. 

[AJD]

I've never seen someone neglect to starve to death in a stalemate.

That's a correct rule observance you haven't seen, not a mess-up.

[Witherweaver]

I've never seen someone neglect to starve to death in a stalemate.

That's a correct rule observance you haven't seen, not a mess-up.

No, they're supposed to starve to death.  I haven't seen someone mess up and not do it.

[AJD]

I've never seen someone neglect to starve to death in a stalemate.

That's a correct rule observance you haven't seen, not a mess-up.

No, they're supposed to starve to death.  I haven't seen someone mess up and not do it.

Multiple negation being hard to parse strikes again!

[Dingan]

I have never seen someone forget about Island stuff

[Awaclus]

Here's a rules mess up that I didn't see in a game I just played:

 - Parsing Noble Brigand's text as "trashes (a revealed Silver) or (a Gold you choose)"

[Jeebus]

I've never seen anyone take their discard pile and flip it upside down to form their draw deck without shuffling it.

I've come pretty close to seeing that. Some people are awful at shuffling.

[Marcory]

I have never seen someone who gets up and tap dances with their discard pile instead of turning the cards face-down and randomly rearranging the order in which they are stacked.

[singletee]

I haven't seen someone spill a drink on the rulebook.

[Tombolo]

I haven't seen anybody intentionally manipulate their discards in order to influence their reshuffle

[ThetaSigma12]

I've never seemed someone whip out a drawing pad and start sketching the dominion card back when they were told to draw a card.

[Jacob marley]

I've never seemed someone whip out a drawing pad and start sketching the dominion card back when they were told to draw a card.

Suddenly I have visions of Amelia Bedelia dancing through my head...

[pacovf]

I haven't seen anybody intentionally manipulate their discards in order to influence their reshuffle

Once, the turn after playing a tactician, I draw 4 extra cards from my deck, and need to reshuffle my discard (just two cards, a Forge and something else). The temptation to cheat never felt greater.

[GendoIkari]

I haven't seen anybody intentionally manipulate their discards in order to influence their reshuffle

I've had to deal with this in MTG and Tichu. Players who, before shuffling normally, pile shuffle or separate out their lands to distribute them throughout. They think they're just trying to "help randomize" it by making sure cards that were together are no longer clumped together... not understanding that that's not how randomization works, and that doing so is either pointless if you shuffle well after, or cheating if you don't.

[pacovf]

I think it was proven that starting from a non-clumped deck requires less shuffles to reach a randomized state than a clumped one? Which is not to say that an evenly-spaced land distribution is randomized, of course.

[GendoIkari]

I think it was proven that starting from a non-clumped deck requires less shuffles to reach a randomized state than a clumped one? Which is not to say that an evenly-spaced land distribution is randomized, of course.

That literally can't be true.... if random is defined as "each card has an equal probability of ending up in any given position", then the only way the starting state can have any impact on the number of shuffles needed is if the starting state is already at least partially randomized. And purposely keeping lands apart from each other is the opposite of randomized.

[gkrieg13]

I haven't seen anybody intentionally manipulate their discards in order to influence their reshuffle

Once, the turn after playing a tactician, I draw 4 extra cards from my deck, and need to reshuffle my discard (just two cards, a Forge and something else). The temptation to cheat never felt greater.

I always make my wife choose if I only have 2 cards in my discard and am going to draw 1.  Or for 3 cards where I'm not going to draw all of them.  Otherwise it is pretty much impossible to not remember the position of each card and let it influence the way I shuffle.

[Awaclus]

That literally can't be true.... if random is defined as "each card has an equal probability of ending up in any given position", then the only way the starting state can have any impact on the number of shuffles needed is if the starting state is already at least partially randomized. And purposely keeping lands apart from each other is the opposite of randomized.

Pileshuffling doesn't increase randomness, but it does increase entropy, which contributes towards the desired goal, which is not "each card has an equal probability of ending up in any given position" because that's outright impossible to achieve through physical shuffling, but something more like "each player has a fair chance of getting good draws or bad draws and can't predict the order of the cards". Specifically, pileshuffling makes it significantly more difficult to predict the order of the cards, so it's neither pointless nor cheating.

If you sort your deck into lands and non-lands and then pileshuffle so that the lands end up evenly distributed, that's cheating because it gives you a better than fair chance of good draws. Pileshuffling in order to evenly distribute the essentially-random selection from your deck that is the cards you drew during your previous game doesn't really make your draws better or worse on average so it's not cheating.

To illustrate the point, I might remember that I drew my Force of Will off of a Brainstorm and then played it immediately afterwards last game, resulting in those two cards being on top of one another in my graveyard, resulting in those two cards being on top of one another in my deck before I shuffled it, resulting in a greater chance that they're still on top of one another after I've shuffled it pretty thoroughly but not perfectly because it's never perfect no matter how long you shuffle it.

If I pileshuffled that deck before shuffling for real, the cards end up exactly 10 cards away from one another, and the odds of those cards still being exactly 10 cards away from one another after the actual shuffle is significantly smaller because there are more chances for other cards to get in between and there are more chances for you to completely separate those cards. You could argue that the original problem with the FoW and the Brainstorm now applies with the FoW and the card that was exactly 6 cards away and is now on top of it after the pileshuffle, but in practice, you're never going to remember what card was exactly 6 cards away from the FoW unless you cheat on purpose, so that doesn't matter.

[sorawotobu]

Of course you're not going to shuffle perfectly, but if you just shuffle somewhat ok pile "shuffling" does nothing. In particular this part

If I pileshuffled that deck before shuffling for real, the cards end up exactly 10 cards away from one another, and the odds of those cards still being exactly 10 cards away from one another after the actual shuffle is significantly smaller because there are more chances for other cards to get in between and there are more chances for you to completely separate those cards.

is not even remotely true unless you shuffle extraordinarily poorly. Just learn how to riffle shuffle.

[pacovf]

I think it was proven that starting from a non-clumped deck requires less shuffles to reach a randomized state than a clumped one? Which is not to say that an evenly-spaced land distribution is randomized, of course.

That literally can't be true.... if random is defined as "each card has an equal probability of ending up in any given position", then the only way the starting state can have any impact on the number of shuffles needed is if the starting state is already at least partially randomized. And purposely keeping lands apart from each other is the opposite of randomized.

I had read that "manaweaved" decks have maximal entropy, which lead to a smaller number of shuffles to randomize them, but any Google search about the topic leads to old Magic discussions about whether it's considered cheating or not, and no actual paper about it, so I might have been wrong.

[Awaclus]

Of course you're not going to shuffle perfectly, but if you just shuffle somewhat ok pile "shuffling" does nothing. In particular this part

is not even remotely true unless you shuffle extraordinarily poorly. Just learn how to riffle shuffle.

How is it not even remotely true? The only shuffling technique whose bottle neck is not cards still being partially in the same order after the shuffle that I know of is the corgi shuffle and nobody ever does that. If you riffle about 10 or so times, you can still expect some pairs of cards that were originally next to one another still being that way or very close, not due to the random chance that they would get into the same order again after randomization, but because they never left that order. After a pile shuffle into 6 piles, 2-3 riffles are enough to give you an order where you can't immediately detect any patterns. Of course, you need to shuffle more so that you won't be able to rely on the order being different either, but at that point, the detectable patterns exist because of randomness, not because of shuffling flaws.

[sorawotobu]

If you riffle about 10 or so times, you can still expect some pairs of cards that were originally next to one another still being that way or very close, not due to the random chance that they would get into the same order again after randomization, but because they never left that order.

No. It's been known for centuries that seven shuffles are enough to randomize a deck of 52 cards as well as you could ask for, you can also check out a maths paper on this subject here.

[Awaclus]

No. It's been known for centuries that seven shuffles are enough to randomize a deck of 52 cards as well as you could ask for, you can also check out a maths paper on this subject here.

It has been known in mathematics but it has never been possible to directly apply it to physical shuffling. The math assumes that when you riffle shuffle, each possible way to arrange the cards is equally likely, but this is not the case in practice.

[Loempiaverkoper]

No. It's been known for centuries that seven shuffles are enough to randomize a deck of 52 cards as well as you could ask for, you can also check out a maths paper on this subject here.

The math assumes that when you riffle shuffle, each possible way to arrange the cards is equally likely.

If you mean here: the ways to mix k cards into n-k while maintaining order of the two piles. They don't just assume all possible ways are equal. Page 8 defines a model for riffling (which is pretty natural imo) that gives the same equal probabilities result.

What would be your quarrel with this model?
I can only think of: in real life I would never allow so many cards from the same pile to stay together in a row, but the model does allow this option. Wouldn't taking this into account in the model lead to even quicker randomization?

Of course there can be other real life problems, like sticky fingers gluing your cards together. For this I have a no snacks during dominion policy

[Awaclus]

Of course there can be other real life problems, like sticky fingers gluing your cards together. For this I have a no snacks during dominion policy

Well, you don't really need sticky fingers for that. It happens a lot in general.

[sorawotobu]

No. It's been known for centuries that seven shuffles are enough to randomize a deck of 52 cards as well as you could ask for, you can also check out a maths paper on this subject here.

It has been known in mathematics but it has never been possible to directly apply it to physical shuffling. The math assumes that when you riffle shuffle, each possible way to arrange the cards is equally likely, but this is not the case in practice.

No, it's been known from experience that this does in fact randomize the cards. 7 shuffles are enough and pile shuffling doesn't help randomize your cards.

[Awaclus]

No, it's been known from experience that this does in fact randomize the cards. 7 shuffles are enough and pile shuffling doesn't help randomize your cards.

No, it doesn't in fact randomize the cards perfectly and pile shuffling makes it more difficult for you to keep track of where your cards are.

[Kirian]

The only shuffling technique whose bottle neck is not cards still being partially in the same order after the shuffle that I know of is the corgi shuffle and nobody ever does that.

Noted, do not let a corgi shuffle my deck.  It would probably eat my cards anyway.

[sorawotobu]

No, it's been known from experience that this does in fact randomize the cards. 7 shuffles are enough and pile shuffling doesn't help randomize your cards.

No, it doesn't in fact randomize the cards perfectly and pile shuffling makes it more difficult for you to keep track of where your cards are.

You're just wrong. If you don't believe me, read up on it; google is your friend.

[Awaclus]

No, it's been known from experience that this does in fact randomize the cards. 7 shuffles are enough and pile shuffling doesn't help randomize your cards.

No, it doesn't in fact randomize the cards perfectly and pile shuffling makes it more difficult for you to keep track of where your cards are.

You're just wrong. If you don't believe me, read up on it; google is your friend.

You're just wrong. If you don't believe me, try actually riffle shuffling a deck 7 times and see what happens.

[sorawotobu]

No, it's been known from experience that this does in fact randomize the cards. 7 shuffles are enough and pile shuffling doesn't help randomize your cards.

No, it doesn't in fact randomize the cards perfectly and pile shuffling makes it more difficult for you to keep track of where your cards are.

You're just wrong. If you don't believe me, read up on it; google is your friend.

You're just wrong. If you don't believe me, try actually riffle shuffling a deck 7 times and see what happens.

I have done that before. Casino dealers and mathematicians know I'm right, there's plenty of literature out there backing me up but apparently you're just going to believe alternative facts.

[Awaclus]

I have done that before. Casino dealers and mathematicians know I'm right

That's probably why they use the corgi shuffle at casinos, right?

[drsteelhammer]

I have done that before. Casino dealers and mathematicians know I'm right

That's probably why they use the corgi shuffle at casinos, right?

They do. Also seen in streamed poker tournaments

[sorawotobu]

They wash or corgi shuffle in casinos because that way the dealer can't cheat. Ask any dealer though and they will tell you that riffle shuffling the cards is the best way of randomizing and will get the job done in seven shuffles. If we scroll up from the page drsteelhammer linked, we find this by the way:

The Gilbert–Shannon–Reeds model provides a mathematical model of the random outcomes of riffling, that has been shown experimentally to be a good fit to human shuffling[2] and that forms the basis for a recommendation that card decks be riffled seven times in order to randomize them thoroughly.[3]

[Awaclus]

They wash or corgi shuffle in casinos because that way the dealer can't cheat. Ask any dealer though and they will tell you that riffle shuffling the cards is the best way of randomizing and will get the job done in seven shuffles. If we scroll up from the page drsteelhammer linked, we find this by the way:

The Gilbert–Shannon–Reeds model provides a mathematical model of the random outcomes of riffling, that has been shown experimentally to be a good fit to human shuffling[2] and that forms the basis for a recommendation that card decks be riffled seven times in order to randomize them thoroughly.[3]

I have experimentally shown that the mathematical model is not a good fit to human shuffling. In fact, the mathematical model is the optimal way to shuffle the cards and any human way to shuffle them is worse. The model isn't amazingly far from the truth for the average person, but for card gamers, dealers, magicians and other people who shuffle a lot of cards, your shuffles are much neater, and thusly, further away from the model and also way less effective. Hell, it's possible to practice the riffle shuffle until you can do it perfectly, in which case it's fully deterministic and you end up with the exact same deck configuration in a bunch of cycles.

What the mathematical model does show is that fewer than seven riffle shuffles can't be enough to randomize the deck, but it doesn't show that seven is enough, it's just a lower bound.

Seven riffles plus a pile shuffle are entirely sufficient though. The patterns are there but it doesn't matter since the pile shuffle makes it practically impossible to detect them.

[werothegreat]

You haven't experimentally shown anything, Awaclus. You're giving an anecdote. What part of "these mathematical models accurately represent real humans shuffling through extensive testing" do you not understand?

[Awaclus]

You haven't experimentally shown anything, Awaclus. You're giving an anecdote. What part of "these mathematical models accurately represent real humans shuffling through extensive testing" do you not understand?

What part of "for card gamers, dealers, magicians and other people who shuffle a lot of cards, your shuffles are much neater, and thusly, further away from the model and also way less effective" do you not understand?

[sorawotobu]

I have experimentally shown that the mathematical model is not a good fit to human shuffling.

I don't know how you think you've proven the research I linked wrong since you haven't posted any proof, did you just shuffle a deck of cards once and expect us to trust you saying it wasn't well shuffled? Do you think all the research on this subject as well as the experience of card players from the past centuries are wrong and you know better because you shuffled a deck once?

In fact, the mathematical model is the optimal way to shuffle the cards and any human way to shuffle them is worse.

...

What the mathematical model does show is that fewer than seven riffle shuffles can't be enough to randomize the deck, but it doesn't show that seven is enough, it's just a lower bound.

You obviously haven't read any research on this topic. May I suggest actually reading the paper I linked or perhaps this famous paper, which was the first peer reviewed paper on the subject afaik. How you can think that being better at shuffling cards makes you worse at shuffling cards is a mystery to me.

Seven riffles plus a pile shuffle are entirely sufficient though. The patterns are there but it doesn't matter since the pile shuffle makes it practically impossible to detect them.

That doesn't even make any sense. I'm starting to think you're actually trolling.

[Awaclus]

I don't know how you think you've proven the research I linked wrong since you haven't posted any proof, did you just shuffle a deck of cards once and expect us to trust you saying it wasn't well shuffled? Do you think all the research on this subject as well as the experience of card players from the past centuries are wrong and you know better because you shuffled a deck once?

I've played Magic since I was 8 and practiced close-up sleight of hand tricks since high school but yeah, I bet I've only ever riffle shuffled a deck of cards once.

I'm not saying the research on this subject is wrong, I'm saying you are drawing conclusions that don't actually follow from the data.

You obviously haven't read any research on this topic. May I suggest actually reading the paper I linked or perhaps this famous paper, which was the first peer reviewed paper on the subject afaik. How you can think that being better at shuffling cards makes you worse at shuffling cards is a mystery to me.

I have, in fact, read research on this topic, including the paper you linked earlier (I hadn't read the one you just posted though). The better you are at riffle shuffling, the closer you are to the perfect riffle shuffle which is a fully deterministic procedure and not at all random, it is very possible to practice until you get it right every time, and any practice you get in shuffling gets you closer to that and further away from the mathematical model. How this is such a mystery to you is a mystery to me.

That doesn't even make any sense. I'm starting to think you're actually trolling.

It's not a difficult concept. Pile shuffling increases entropy, and entropy makes it more difficult to predict the order in which your cards are.

[sorawotobu]

I've played Magic since I was 8 and practiced close-up sleight of hand tricks since high school but yeah, I bet I've only ever riffle shuffled a deck of cards once.

I'm not saying the research on this subject is wrong, I'm saying you are drawing conclusions that don't actually follow from the data.

You are making claims that contradict the findings of the research, one of which is that their model does in fact accurately represent human shuffling. You claimed to have shown this is not true without telling us how you accomplished that. If you released your work and it turned out to be what you say it is, it will surely be published. there might be fame and money in it for you!

The better you are at riffle shuffling, the closer you are to the perfect riffle shuffle which is a fully deterministic procedure and not at all random, it is very possible to practice until you get it right every time, and any practice you get in shuffling gets you closer to that and further away from the mathematical model.

If you specifically practice the perfect shuffle, you can get it pretty reliably if you try. That doesn't mean you won't be able to stop yourself from shuffling this way unconsciously.

It's not a difficult concept. Pile shuffling increases entropy, and entropy makes it more difficult to predict the order in which your cards are.

So your point of critique against riffle shuffling is that under certain circumstances (which don't arise unless someone is purposely trying to cheat; I'm talking about actual shuffling, not card tricks) it is deterministic. Adding a layer of deterministic rearrangement of the cards ought to fix that!

[LastFootnote]

Don't feed the Awaclus.

[Donald X.]

I always base my shuffling on particles decaying; I mean there's actual randomness. If your deck doesn't have a quantum superposition, it's not really shuffled.

[Awaclus]

You are making claims that contradict the findings of the research, one of which is that their model does in fact accurately represent human shuffling. You claimed to have shown this is not true without telling us how you accomplished that. If you released your work and it turned out to be what you say it is, it will surely be published. there might be fame and money in it for you!

It's not exactly a new idea that experienced shufflers are more skilled (i.e. less random) at shuffling than others. The research you are referring to never says that it applies to skilled shufflers; you are making that part up all on your own. Which is to say that my claims don't contradict the research, they contradict your claims that are not based on the research.

If you specifically practice the perfect shuffle, you can get it pretty reliably if you try. That doesn't mean you won't be able to stop yourself from shuffling this way unconsciously.

You don't have to specifically practice the perfect shuffle. Any time you spend riffle shuffling contributes towards your future shuffles being less random, because the randomness comes from the fact that you're supposed to suck at it.

So your point of critique against riffle shuffling is that under certain circumstances (which don't arise unless someone is purposely trying to cheat; I'm talking about actual shuffling, not card tricks) it is deterministic. Adding a layer of deterministic rearrangement of the cards ought to fix that!

My point is not really a critique against riffle shuffling. Riffle shuffling is fine if you do it more than 10 times. I'm specifically taking an issue with your incorrect stance that exactly 7 times is enough. What's more is that you also can't apply the 52-card deck math to 60-card decks as directly as you might think based on the fact that the difference between 52 and 60 doesn't seem that big, because the difference between 52! and 60! is actually pretty big.

The problem with riffle shuffling, though, is that it can damage unsleeved cards more than a lot of people are willing to damage their TCG or board game cards, and that's why they'll stick to something like the overhand shuffle, which is actually super crap at randomization. But if you start with a deck that is in no particular order but you know some parts of that order, pile shuffle it and overhand shuffle it for a while, that's basically enough to achieve all the purposes you need the randomization for.

[Loempiaverkoper]

The problem with riffle shuffling, though, is that it can damage unsleeved cards more than a lot of people are willing to damage their TCG or board game cards, and that's why they'll stick to something like the overhand shuffle, which is actually super crap at randomization. But if you start with a deck that is in no particular order but you know some parts of that order, pile shuffle it and overhand shuffle it for a while, that's basically enough to achieve all the purposes you need the randomization for.

Well I agree with this.
If this is actually what you were getting at, why go through all those weird lines of argumentation against the math, with mentions of private experiments and appeals to your own authority?

[Cave-o-sapien]

The more interesting thing to me with respect to Dominion shuffling is that you are very rarely shuffling your entire deck. Usually your deck gets compartmentalized into sub-decks, some of them quite small, which can result in certain sets of cards showing up in the same hands with greater probability than if you were shuffling the entire deck. Smarter players than me no doubt take advantage of this.

(I suppose it's also worth pointing out that shuffling small sub-decks makes it easier to cheat IRL).

The problem with riffle shuffling, though, is that it can damage unsleeved cards more than a lot of people are willing to damage their TCG or board game cards, and that's why they'll stick to something like the overhand shuffle, which is actually super crap at randomization. But if you start with a deck that is in no particular order but you know some parts of that order, pile shuffle it and overhand shuffle it for a while, that's basically enough to achieve all the purposes you need the randomization for.

Do you mean mash shuffling or overhand shuffling? In theory, mash shuffling, if well-executed, is equivalent to a riffle shuffle. When playing paper Dominion I mash shuffle my sleeved cards (as do most other players I've played with).

If you mean strictly overhand shuffles, then I disagree that a combination of pile shuffling and overhand shuffling would achieve sufficient randomness.

[sorawotobu]

Don't feed the Awaclus.

I'll try stick to that advice from now on, just one last thing because I can't help it:

What's more is that you also can't apply the 52-card deck math to 60-card decks as directly as you might think based on the fact that the difference between 52 and 60 doesn't seem that big, because the difference between 52! and 60! is actually pretty big.

I don't know why you think the difference between 52! and 60! plays a role if you are, as you claim to be, familiar with the research on this problem. From the first paragraph of the paper by Bayer & Diaconis:

3/2 log2(n)+θ shuffles are necessary and sufficient to mix up n cards.

Logarithmic growth <linear < polynomial < exponential < factorial growth, in case you weren't aware.

[Awaclus]

Well I agree with this.
If this is actually what you were getting at, why go through all those weird lines of argumentation against the math, with mentions of private experiments and appeals to your own authority?

This is what I was originally getting at. The riffle shuffle discussion was largely unrelated but I had to have it because sorawotobu's claim about 7 times being sufficient was wrong.

Do you mean mash shuffling or overhand shuffling? In theory, mash shuffling, if well-executed, is equivalent to a riffle shuffle. When playing paper Dominion I mash shuffle my sleeved cards (as do most other players I've played with).

If you mean strictly overhand shuffles, then I disagree that a combination of pile shuffling and overhand shuffling would achieve sufficient randomness.

I mean overhand shuffles. I'm not saying it achieves much randomness at all, I'm saying it doesn't matter that it's not very random since the shuffle is both fair and unpredictable, which are the qualities that you really want from a random shuffle anyway.

I don't know why you think the difference between 52! and 60! plays a role if you are, as you claim to be, familiar with the research on this problem.

Because I'm not a mathematician. Point taken though.