Dealing

[barmar]

Can RAs restrict how the cards are dealt (when dealing by hand)?

 

All that L6B says about how to deal cards is "The recommended procedure is that the

cards be dealt in rotation, clockwise." In practice this usually isn't possible, because several people are dealing simultaneously, and there isn't room for all of them to make a circle of piles. So most people have the piles in a row in front of them. Making 4 piles and dealing left to right is essentially the same as the recommended procedure.

 

But I find it easier to deal 5 piles, going back and forth, and then combine the two end piles into one hand, avoiding having to swing my hands all the way back to the left end before dealing the next set of 4 cards. There are also people who deal 4 piles back and forth, dealing two cards in a row to the piles at the ends when changing directions.

 

I've had some opponents tell me that my method of dealing isn't authorized by the ACBL. Conversely, I once asked a national TD (it might have been Mike Flader, who writes the "Ruling the Game" column for the ACBL Bulletin), and he told me that pretty much anything is allowed UNLESS two cards are dealt to the same hand in a row.

 

So the general question is whether RAs are allowed to establish rules like this? And more specifically, does anyone know where the ACBL regulation is stated? I tried searching the ACBL web site, but the word "dealing" is most often used in the phrase "dealing with <some situation>".

[blackshoe]

First, RAs can pretty much make whatever regulations they like, so long as they do not conflict with the laws.

Second, there's no such regulation in the ACBL (or anywhere else, as far as I know). Mike Flader is right. Your "five piles" is legal (I do that myself). The people who deal into four piles, placing two consecutive cards in the same pile, are in violation of the law.

 

"Clockwise" doesn't necessarily mean you have to lay the cards down in the shape of a clock. If you put them in a line, deal 4 cards left to right, and then go back to the leftmost pile, that's "clockwise".

[barmar]

Which law are the double-dealers in violation of? Not 6B, which just recommends, doesn't require, clockwise dealing?

[aguahombre]

Which law are the double-dealers in violation of? Not 6B, which just recommends, doesn't require, clockwise dealing?

those of us old enough to remember playing Goulash, know the purpose of dealing more than one card to the same hand at the same time is to create (in combination with a bad or non-existent shuffle) a freak hand.

[barmar]

Which law are the double-dealers in violation of?  Not 6B, which just recommends, doesn't require, clockwise dealing?

those of us old enough to remember playing Goulash, know the purpose of dealing more than one card to the same hand at the same time is to create (in combination with a bad or non-existent shuffle) a freak hand.

In the case of goulash, you go to extremes: you don't shuffle, and then you deal 3 or 4 cards in a row to each hand.

 

But I guess that rather than prohibiting goulash specifically, it's better to generalize and say that you should never deal to the same hand consecutively. But where is this specifically prohibited?

[aguahombre]

good question. It just makes so much sense not to double-deal, it never occurred to me to question it. Better question might be, "why not just do it?"

 

In "A Few Good Men", the guy managed to find the chow line, even if the procedure was not in the Manual. He just followed the crowd when he was hungry.

[mjj29]

But I guess that rather than prohibiting goulash specifically, it's better to generalize and say that you should never deal to the same hand consecutively. But where is this specifically prohibited?

The justification I've seen is from L6B (emphasis mine):

The cards must be dealt face down, one card at a time, into four hands of thirteen each... The recommended behaviour is that the cards be dealt in rotation, clockwise.

you can, of course, place cards one at a time into the same pile which would seem to me to fullfill the above, but other people read it differently. Of course, if you are the director then you have considerably more leeway:

The Director may require a different method of dealing or pre-dealing to produce the same wholly random expectations as from A and B above

This route would probably let an RA permit or proscribe different methods of dealing via the Director.

[blackshoe]

The whole point to a goulash is that the deals are not "wholly random". I think "not two cards consecutively to the same hand" is a consequence of the idea that deals should be "wholly random", particular given it's well known that in hand shuffling, two cards may well stay together.

[pran]

The whole point to a goulash is that the deals are not "wholly random". I think "not two cards consecutively to the same hand" is a consequence of the idea that deals should be "wholly random", particular given it's well known that in hand shuffling, two cards may well stay together.

A common mistake about "random" is for instance that two consecutive cards cannot be given to the same hand.

 

There is a famous analogy from WW2: The weakness in the German "Enigma" cipher that made it possible to break it was the fact that no letter could be enciphered into itself! (e.g. an "a" in the clear text could become any of the 25 characters other than "a" in the enciphered message). Had the Enigma cipher not been subject to this weakness the enciphering procedure would have been sufficiently random to prevent it from being broken, and it is quite probable that Germany then would have won WW2 in Europe.

[blackshoe]

By induction, then, if you deal the top 13 cards off the deck into one hand, that's "random". :ph34r:

[TimG]

By induction, then, if you deal the top 13 cards off the deck into one hand, that's "random". :ph34r:

If the shuffle is sufficient, this should be the case, shouldn't it?

[Hanoi5]

There is a famous analogy from WW2: The weakness in the German "Enigma" cipher that made it possible to break it was the fact that no letter could be enciphered into itself! (e.g. an "a" in the clear text could become any of the 25 characters other than "a" in the enciphered message). Had the Enigma cipher not been subject to this weakness the enciphering procedure would have been sufficiently random to prevent it from being broken, and it is quite probable that Germany then would have won WW2 in Europe.

 

This is VERY off-topic, not to say politically incorrect (?)...I think.

 

Anyway I think I saw a movie where a submarine was stolen from the Germans carrying the enigma machine, is this false? Was it Sheinwold who 'deciphered' it without the machine?

[bluejak]

The cards must be dealt face down, one card at a time, into four hands of thirteen each... The recommended behaviour is that the cards be dealt in rotation, clockwise.

you can, of course, place cards one at a time into the same pile which would seem to me to full fill the above, but other people read it differently.

Whether people read it differently or not, that is considered the normal interpretation.

 

This is VERY off-topic, not to say politically incorrect (?)...I think.

Off topic? Not really: if someone takes an analogy form outside bridge to make a point I do not think it off topic. And it certainly does not seem 'politically incorrect', whatever that means.

 

:unsure:

 

No doubt a perfectly shuffled pack can be dealt any way you like without affecting the randomness of the deal. The idea of not allowing two cards to go into the same pile is to add a little more randomness into imperfectly shuffled packs.

[pran]

By induction, then, if you deal the top 13 cards off the deck into one hand, that's "random". :unsure:

Yes, provided the pack of cards has been properly shuffled first!

[pran]

There is a famous analogy from WW2: The weakness in the German "Enigma" cipher that made it possible to break it was the fact that no letter could be enciphered into itself! (e.g. an "a" in the clear text could become any of the 25 characters other than "a" in the enciphered message). Had the Enigma cipher not been subject to this weakness the enciphering procedure would have been sufficiently random to prevent it from being broken, and it is quite probable that Germany then would have won WW2 in Europe.

 

This is VERY off-topic, not to say politically incorrect (?)...I think.

 

Anyway I think I saw a movie where a submarine was stolen from the Germans carrying the enigma machine, is this false? Was it Sheinwold who 'deciphered' it without the machine?

True, but the Enigma messages were not deciphered simply because they had the machine. (In fact they had numerous machines at Bletchley Park).

 

In order to decipher the messages they needed to find the settings of the various parameters in the machine and this task was only possible because the Enigma process was not sufficiently random.

 

BTW. I agree that it is politically incorrect to do anything in conflict with the laws. But be aware of law 6E4 which originally was introduced in the laws in recognition of modern technology being available.

 

So whatever method the Director rules acceptable for dealing the cards is automatically within the laws.

[Mbodell]

Anyway I think I saw a movie where a submarine was stolen from the Germans carrying the enigma machine, is this false? Was it Sheinwold who 'deciphered' it without the machine?

You might be thinking of the movie U-571 from the year 2000 with Mathew McConaughey playing the lead where US soldiers capture an Enigma from U-571. That was loosely based on the British crew who first captured an Enigma machine from the U-110 during WWII before the US even entered the war.

 

As for who was involved in cracking the Enigma during WWII, most of the credit goes to Alan Turing. There have been a few movies about his life as he is a famous British mathematician, father of modern computers, hero of the war for cracking Enigma, and tragic figure after being convicted of being homosexual in 1952 and accepting a sentence of chemical castration as a result and then committing (likely) suicide just later in 1954.

[barmar]

good question. It just makes so much sense not to double-deal, it never occurred to me to question it. Better question might be, "why not just do it?"

I don't do it. The question is whether I can complain if someone ELSE does it.

 

I never do, but others have "instructed" me that I was breaking some rule when I do the 5-pile deal (which doesn't involve dealing to the same hand consecutively), and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them do the 4-pile back and forth deal.

 

So I was just hoping that I could point to something official that says I'm OK.

[pran]

good question.  It just makes so much sense not to double-deal, it never occurred to me to question it.  Better question might be, "why not just do it?"

I don't do it. The question is whether I can complain if someone ELSE does it.

 

I never do, but others have "instructed" me that I was breaking some rule when I do the 5-pile deal (which doesn't involve dealing to the same hand consecutively), and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them do the 4-pile back and forth deal.

 

So I was just hoping that I could point to something official that says I'm OK.

You might break some local regulation, but you certainly do not break any law with the ("standard") 5-pile deal.

 

Incidentally, when the pack is not perfectly shuffled the 5-pile deal is slightly "better" than the standard (round the clock) 4-pile deal because only two of the four hands receive exactly every fourth card from the pack. The other two hands receive cards with varying intervals.

[barmar]

Incidentally, when the pack is not perfectly shuffled the 5-pile deal is slightly "better" than the standard (round the clock) 4-pile deal because only two of the four hands receive exactly every fourth card from the pack. The other two hands receive cards with varying intervals.

Two hands get every 4th card, the other two get them in alternating intervals of 2 and 6 (one of them starts with the 6, the other starts with the 2). So they vary, but not very much. Notice that there are no odd intervals. It's probably a good idea to avoid a consistent way of putting the hands into the pockets -- you don't want to always give NS the 4-4's and EW the 2-6's, you should try to mix up the combinations.

 

I used to play rubber bridge with someone who tried to deal somewhat randomly. For each group of 4 cards, he would deal them out in an arbitrary order among the 4 hands. He probably violated the rule against dealing to the same hand twice in a row, because sometimes a pile would be the last of one group and first of the next. But unlike the people who deal 4 hands back and forth, the double-deals didn't happen with any regular pattern, so all in all this was probably a better method than any of the normal dealing methods -- it's like an extra shuffle.

[pran]

Incidentally, when the pack is not perfectly shuffled the 5-pile deal is slightly "better" than the standard (round the clock) 4-pile deal because only two of the four hands receive exactly every fourth card from the pack. The other two hands receive cards with varying intervals.

Two hands get every 4th card, the other two get them in alternating intervals of 2 and 6 (one of them starts with the 6, the other starts with the 2). So they vary, but not very much. Notice that there are no odd intervals. It's probably a good idea to avoid a consistent way of putting the hands into the pockets -- you don't want to always give NS the 4-4's and EW the 2-6's, you should try to mix up the combinations.

 

I used to play rubber bridge with someone who tried to deal somewhat randomly. For each group of 4 cards, he would deal them out in an arbitrary order among the 4 hands. He probably violated the rule against dealing to the same hand twice in a row, because sometimes a pile would be the last of one group and first of the next. But unlike the people who deal 4 hands back and forth, the double-deals didn't happen with any regular pattern, so all in all this was probably a better method than any of the normal dealing methods -- it's like an extra shuffle.

Except that according to experience a human is never able to produce a random sequence without "something" to aid him.

 

Still, if he is fairly good in his attempt to deal randomly I suppose this can be as good as any other manual dealing process. How often did he end up with a 14-12 situation?