So What’s the Big Deal

So What’s the Big Deal

“Oh, no! Not computer dealt hands again. I can’t bear them!” goes the cry, increasingly often today. But why should people become so hot and bothered? Surely a properly generated random deal will produce hands which follow the predicted expected distributional probabilities. True, only too true. Therein lies the rub.

For over 100 years by far the majority of players at all levels have played hands which have been dealt by human beings. Indeed in the original laws of the Game, the shuffle had to be performed by one or other of the players at the table. It is a further truth, however, that try as one might, Human Random is different from Absolute Random. In truly random deals, the more extreme distributions occur observably more frequently than they do when people have done the shuffling. The fact that this is how it should be in theory, does not make it any more appealing to the average player.

Even the above average player has become accustomed to expectations developed from experience with Human Random dealing. Such truisms as 25 HCP (it used to be 26) will generally produce a game, apply principally when distributions are slightly skewed towards the balanced, rather than unbalanced. By this I mean that although with 6 cards missing one is not surprised to find them more often 4-2, rather than 3-3, it is more of a shock to find them 5-1 or 6-0. Yet the combined probability of the latter pair is over 15%, or 1 in 7, at random.

Tough, the expert might well say, with some justification at his or her level. Yet for Contract Bridge to retain its popularity, it must continue to cater for the ordinary player as well as the expert. Computer dealt hands are very convenient for organisers of competitions. They enable hands to be dealt, duplicated, curtain carded, and commentaries prepared well beforehand. But, I do not think it necessary to have computer-dealt hands generated at absolute random. It is quite possible to simulate adequately a human shuffle and deal, by computer. If you don’t believe me, go here. Every time you refresh the page a new “gremlin random” deal will appear

Although the algorithm no doubt could be refined, I trust you will agree that the hands are much as you would expect from shuffling at the table. Feel free to use them for any non-profit, or charitable, purpose. I hope you enjoy them. I pay a fortune to those gremlins I dispatch over the web, to your computer, to do the dealing.