Feeling confident your cards are well shuffled

zach bender made a comment in another thread which I just read, and it sparked something that I had been meaning to share and get the opinions of others.

This is from Sedi's thread, "Returning cards to the deck":

there is math somewhere that says maybe eight or so "riffle" shuffles will restore randomness.

zb

Click to expand...

I also read this quite a while ago and have experimented several times. The actual statement was that 7 riffle shuffles with completely randomize an ordered deck. I think the article was about poker or something, not tarot.

So yes, the 'inner scientist' in me had to try this. Several times with several decks over time.

I took a completely ordered deck and riffle shuffled it seven times. Then I went through the deck to check for any pairs. Every single time there were at most 3 pairs left, usually two. Now I am weaker on stats but am willing to bet that statistically there is always at least one and possibly two pairs in any deck regardless of its state of shuffling.

Anyone else care to share what they may do to feel sure in their own mind that the deck is ready for action?

M

I am am awful shuffler so I go through a deck and make sure the same suits are not consecutive just by placing them here and there and then I shuffle a few times and when I feel the deck is mixed up enough, then, if two of the same suit come out in order I know it is meant to be that way and not just my carelessness in shuffling. Long winded but some cards are so big anyway I find it impossible to riffle shuffle and I only read uprights so if I get a reverse card I read it at that point.

Not an expert for sure.

I wondered about returning cards to a deck
after a reading... should they go in a group,
or be reinserted throughout the entire deck?

So I turned 11 cards upside down, and then
shuffled both ways, and made notes, where
they reappeared (1 thru 78) and also if any
were still together, or not, after shuffling...

Whether in a group, or reinserted singly...
they turned up in pairs or not either way!

I shuffle intuitively, and sometimes I shuffle many times before a reading, sometimes just once or twice. But I don't deal out consecutive cards for my readings (I lay out the first and second off the top, the third off the bottom, and cut for each card after that) so I don't tend to have a problem with pairs coming up in consecutive readings.

Fulgour said:

I wondered about returning cards to a deck
after a reading... should they go in a group,
or be reinserted throughout the entire deck?

So I turned 11 cards upside down, and then
shuffled both ways, and made notes, where
they reappeared (1 thru 78) and also if any
were still together, or not, after shuffling...

Whether in a group, or reinserted singly...
they turned up in pairs or not either way!

Click to expand...

Thanks for your thoughts!

That topic is currently under discussion in this thread which is where I saw zach bender's comment.

I was more hoping to discuss the issue more generally.

Hi Marion! Please feel free to move my post there,
but it was my "experiment" that gave me confidence
that I really was shuffling completely, at every time.

*

Another thing I do is say something like, "Ok, now!"
early on in the shuffling...distracted thoughts after
that moment of clarity and intent, are just ignored.

I have always subscribed to the thought that the deck is ready to go, when they have "cooked" enough in the Universal cauldron of randomizing. In short, when they're done they're done, ready to go.

Baroli

Yeah, I stopped worrying about it, because the cards that come out where meant to be, regardless if some of the same cards show up in various spreads concerning the same subject. For instance, you are using 2 to 3 different spreads on a love reading on the same person.

The only time I worry about bad shuffling is when several cards fall out my hand at once. Then I worry if I continue would that mess up the reading. Therefore, I stop, pray to deity that they will give me the best cards for the second try of reading and start all over again shuffling.

Interesting Fulgour so you had the same thought I did but you proved it !

I fan my cards at the top of the spread cloth and then draw at random rather than deal from the deck so for me even the drawing is an additional shuffle.