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These hands don't seem very random

In a Bridge Club Live! discussion board, a poster named Questor said of the book:

Two random attempts:
On page 97347209860982098 N has ♠ AKQJT9876543 ♥ A ♦ — ♣ —
On page 65464654211654543564 N has ♠ AKQJT76543 ♥ AKJ ♦ — ♣ —

Why am I beginning to suspect that my key presses are more random than his algorithm?

Since I cannot respond to Questor's comment on the site (I am not a member,) I thought I'd reply here.

The answer to this is that, while Questor's numbers are large by mortal standards, they are puny compared to the total number of bridge deals.

The larger of his two numbers is actually still basically at the front of the book. As a percentage, it is little more than 0.0000001% of the way through the book.

As it happens, the probability that north will be dealt all hearts and spades is 1/61055, or about 0.0016%. Since all of these hands appear at the beginning of the book, Questor's "random" numbers haven't even started to get close to being outside the the range of hands where north has all hearts and spades.


Copyright 2004. Thomas Andrews (thomas@thomasoandrews.com) .