Does folding, calling or betting change the flop?

[Dark Army]

I recently learned that the RNG's at the online poker sites are constantly shuffling the cards. I don't know if this is true for all poker sites, but it may be for some.

It shuffles the cards before the flop, after the flop, after the turn and perhaps even after the river card. From my understanding, it never stops shuffling the cards.

If this is true, does it not mean that the flop resulting after a fold would be different if you had called?

We know that RNG's function very quickly. The algorithm may be shuffling the cards more than 10,000 times per second.....which is actually pretty slow for a processor. Could be hundreds of thousands....who knows. But lets just go with the 10,000 shuffle number. This means that every 1/10th of a second, the deck is being shuffled 1000 times. Every 1/20th of a second, it's being shuffled 500 times.

Now, lets say it takes you 1.5 seconds to move your mouse over to the fold button.

If instead of folding, lets say you called someone's raise and that it took you 1.8 seconds to move to the call button simply because the call button is further away from the fold button.

That's a difference of 0.3 seconds, which is approximately 3000 shuffles.

Does this not mean that the fold button produces a different flop from the call button?

And what if you had raised? Let's say you spend 10 seconds figuring out your raise. That's another 100,000 shuffles.

If this is true, then there's no point in looking at the flop and wishing you had called or being happy that you folded. If you folded Ace King suited, and the flop came down Queen Jack Ten same suit, would that exact same flop had come down if you had called? Does the extra time moving to the call button change the flop?

If true, this of course has no impact on winning or losing. It just means that it's pointless for anyone to pound their fist on the table after seeing a flop that favors their folded hand. If they had called, the flop would have been different.

Am I right?

 

[puzzlefish]

Are you right? How would anybody know? What are your sources for your assumptions about shuffling? What does one "shuffle" represent and what is the impact on cards?

These are all rhetorical questions. Nobody knows except the people who built the software that displays the cards. I would suggest stop thinking about the what ifs and take a more scientific approach to your game. Make predictions, get data, test your predictions, assess the results and repeat.

 

[Donskey]

Whether it continues to shuffle after whole cards are dealt or whether it is static makes totally no difference in the long run. It's all random one way or the other.

 

[Meepomancer1122]

Whether it continues to shuffle after whole cards are dealt or whether it is static makes totally no difference in the long run. It's all random one way or the other.

I agree with you, but I also agree with the OP. It has no effect in the long run, since the cards are indeed random, but they might change in the short run if it is constantly being shuffled

 

[Dark Army]

I would suggest stop thinking about the what ifs and take a more scientific approach to your game. Make predictions, get data, test your predictions, assess the results and repeat.

Right, but that's not what I'm talking about. This isn't a game improvement thread.

I saw a video from one poker site who claims that they shuffle the deck one time before the deal and never again. I've heard that other sites continue to shuffle past the flop.

The method for shuffling that was explained in the video is actually pretty interesting. They shoot a laser into a mirror. The beam shoots out into several directions. Some of it passes through the mirror while some bounces off. A camera looks at the particles and assigns a "0" to particles that go through and a "1" to particles that bounce off. The order of the particles is put into an array that is used to determine the order of the deck. They then use random user input such as mouse movement and keyboard strokes to choose other 1's and 0's. All of these 1's and 0's are put into an array of thousands of groups of 52. From there, the program randomly chooses a 1 or a 0 from any particular group. If a "1" from place 25 is chosen, it pulls card number 25 from the deck and deals it.

 

[MatMackenz]

I recently learned that the RNG's at the online poker sites are constantly shuffling the cards. I don't know if this is true for all poker sites, but it may be for some.

It shuffles the cards before the flop, after the flop, after the turn and perhaps even after the river card. From my understanding, it never stops shuffling the cards.

If this is true, does it not mean that the flop resulting after a fold would be different if you had called?

We know that RNG's function very quickly. The algorithm may be shuffling the cards more than 10,000 times per second.....which is actually pretty slow for a processor. Could be hundreds of thousands....who knows. But lets just go with the 10,000 shuffle number. This means that every 1/10th of a second, the deck is being shuffled 1000 times. Every 1/20th of a second, it's being shuffled 500 times.

Now, lets say it takes you 1.5 seconds to move your mouse over to the fold button.

If instead of folding, lets say you called someone's raise and that it took you 1.8 seconds to move to the call button simply because the call button is further away from the fold button.

That's a difference of 0.3 seconds, which is approximately 3000 shuffles.

Does this not mean that the fold button produces a different flop from the call button?

And what if you had raised? Let's say you spend 10 seconds figuring out your raise. That's another 100,000 shuffles.

If this is true, then there's no point in looking at the flop and wishing you had called or being happy that you folded. If you folded Ace King suited, and the flop came down Queen Jack Ten same suit, would that exact same flop had come down if you had called? Does the extra time moving to the call button change the flop?

If true, this of course has no impact on winning or losing. It just means that it's pointless for anyone to pound their fist on the table after seeing a flop that favors their folded hand. If they had called, the flop would have been different.

Am I right?

Depending on the RNG system used, it will take elements such as the amount of time taken, mouse movements, etc., to decide which cards come next. This usually combined with other ways of generating random numbers, such a light-reflection or static.

So technically, you are correct. Altough it is kind of a pointless thing to think about, as there is no way to determine how your actions or timing will affect the deal. Its just a way the computer is able to randomly shuffle the deck.

Here is a video you may find interesting on the subject. It goes deep into the way the RNG works at pokerstars.

 

[puzzlefish]

Yeah so you have a video or text telling you that the RNG works this way or that way. It is up to you whether to believe it or not. You want to know if the flop is different when you play your hole cards versus when you do not. What if sometimes it is different and other times it is not? There's no way to tell and it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is if it is all truly random or if there are predictable properties in an RNG. I suggest the latter, which is why I suggested you go and collect some data of your own. You have to put in the groundwork yourself to find the answer.

 

[fadisn]

Am I right?

No one can simply answer that question,
Although your mathematics sounds understandable, but when they simulate and as showed in the attached video here, they should do that as the real live ! Shuffled before and drop flop and all hands (including folded) cards, so after that if they shuffle once or 10000000 times, or even not shuffle at all as the real live, what difference can that make ?
You'll still need to feel sorry when you see your folded hand could made the largest win !
And vice versa !
Meanwhile, I can understand your point as I still have the feeling that online poker on some points just rewards the player, as it has happened in front of me (against) and for me also !
So is it rigged or not, I dont know ! But this feeling should exist as I am not seeing the turn/river cards dealing actually.