Usually I employ different techniques to give a deck a good shuffle. But with Daisy using Old Book of Lore, I feel like I do nothing *but* shuffle lately, slowing the game flow considerably.

So - any ideas on what might be the fastest way to (thoroughly) shuffle the player deck?

Act like you are dealing out your cards to a bunch of players, by placing 1 card at a time in clockwise order into 6-7 small piles in a circle . Once you have done that, randomly grab a pile then another and another until you have all the cards. They should be shuffled really well now. Takes about 20 seconds or less.

That is an horrible way of shuffle, time consuming and require a lot of table space. Not recommended.

If you are using sleeves, which I recommend, the fastes is variantion or rifle shuffle.

Split the deck in two halves and push one halve into another side by side. It should take less than a second. To it several times, cut the deck and you are done. Should take 5 seconds max and doesn't tzke any table space as you are holding deck all the time in your hands.

Here is good example, of course he is doing it much slower to clearly show how it should be done:

Unfortunately, I find this method not very practical with the table space available during play.

Also the method does not seem really random to me, since it depends on me picking the piles "randomly". But I might know which cards are on the top or bottom of the deck (because I put them there after using Old Book of Lore or because I see them if I shuffle the discard pile for a new deck) and that might (consciously or unconsciously) influence which piles to take last or first.

I could cut the deck or put the cards I drew with Old Book of Lore in the middle of the deck before shuffling. But with a deck of 20 cards and 6-7 piles, I mostly get piles of three. And with the card being in the midfle of the deck, it would likely be the second card of any pile. So after shuffling I might not know where exactly the known card is in the deck, but if I drew 2 cards from the new deck and did not draw the known card, I could be pretty sure that it was not among the next two cards I drew.

Usually I might not care so much, but last game I got The Necronomicon and Amnesia with Old Book of Lore and it took a bit of shuffling until I was convinced that any card in the deck could be one of them. So I used my other Old Book of Lore - and got the Necronomicon again. Again lots of shuffling until I honestly had no idea where in the deck it was.

I was playing solo, but I myself got annoyed about how long my turn took, so I asked myself if there is a faster way short of employing a shuffling machine...

Weaving (that is how I know the method from the video) is faster, but I think I might need to do it a couple of times and alternate it with uneven cuts before I could be convinced that a card that started on top of the deck could just as likely end up on the bottom...

Weaving (aka pile shuffling) does not randomize your deck sufficiently to count as a shuffle (there's a reason it's banned at sanctioned Magic: the Gathering tournaments).

You seem to be mistakenly taking a very small sample size into believing that's the behavior of your deck as a whole (also, since when does Old Book of Lore require you to draw The Necronomicon or Amnesia? You choose which card you want with Old Book of Lore; unlike Arcane Initiate, you're not forced to take a Spell, so you don't have to pick your Weaknesses if you don't want to -- or unless your three cards are all Weaknesses, I guess, for an advanced character). This would be a subset of the Gambler's Fallacy, in which you think that a recurring small probability event means that the larger probability event must happen next to "balance out" the odds. It doesn't. Like the saying goes, the coin doesn't care how many heads it turns up; each flip is 50/50.

A truly randomized deck will probably have clumps and groupings of types of cards, because random decks are like that.

The best way to randomize your cards is the riffle shuffle. The pile smash can work if you don't want to bend the cards with a lot of riffling, although it's not as truly random (then again, you're not running a big money Vegas casino where you want true randomization). And since you appear very deadset on getting "true" randomness, I suggest you just buy a standard pack of normal 52 playing cards, set aside an afternoon to listen to your favorite podcasts or catch up on Netflix, and just practice the hell out of riffle shuffling that deck for four to six hours or so. Not only will you begin to appreciate the skill of card magicians (it's a lot of hard work and hand strength to do what they do with decks), you'll improve your own skill and speed at a very fundamental part of card games -- shuffling.

It *doesn't matter* where the Old Book of Lore is when you start your shuffle. In fact, if you're deliberately putting it "in the middle", you're doing more damage to your randomization than if you don't care where it starts, which is the proper attitude.

If you're properly shuffling, it doesn't matter "if you know" which stacks the cards might be in. News flash -- you know what cards are in the deck as a whole. Get over the idea that your knowledge of the deck affects the card distribution therein.

Just get a deck of playing cards and practice your basic shuffles. Learn to play cards, basically. And pick up a book on gambling fallacies along the way, as you seem prone in these posts to at least a few of the common ones.

Usually I might not care so much, but last game I got The Necronomicon and Amnesia with Old Book of Lore and it took a bit of shuffling until I was convinced that any card in the deck could be one of them. So I used my other Old Book of Lore - and got the Necronomicon again. Again lots of shuffling until I honestly had no idea where in the deck it was.

Try just guessing where the Necronomicon is and checking to see how close you got. If you're wrong, then congratulations! You're better at shuffling than you thought, and can duplicate that shuffle as much as you like.

Usually I might not care so much, but last game I got The Necronomicon and Amnesia with Old Book of Lore and it took a bit of shuffling until I was convinced that any card in the deck could be one of them. So I used my other Old Book of Lore - and got the Necronomicon again. Again lots of shuffling until I honestly had no idea where in the deck it was.

Try just guessing where the Necronomicon is and checking to see how close you got. If you're wrong, then congratulations! You're better at shuffling than you thought, and can duplicate that shuffle as much as you like.

The trouble with that is that it's entirely possible, even if unlikely, that they'll always guess where The Necronomicon is, no matter how good or bad the shuffle. All finding The Necronomicon does in your example is show them if they did or did not find The Necronomicon. It doesn't actually say anything about their shuffling technique. It's a completely meaningless statistic.

Which is why you have to stop worrying about where the cards are, and just learn to shuffle. And if you want to become good at shuffling (or baking, or brain surgery, or anything), the way you do it is by practicing. Buy that basic Bicycle deck of cards, queue up that Netflix marathon you've been putting off, and just riffle shuffle that deck *all afternoon* and do it *without looking at it* (you shouldn't need to ever look at a deck you're shuffling). You're watching the Netflix anyway, right?

Back when I was doing magic (card magic, not Magic: the Card Game), I had a new standard deck of cards in my jacket at all times. When I was riding the bus or waiting in queue or otherwise having to spend time not doing much of anything, I'd just pull that deck out and shuffle without looking at it until something came around that required my attention (I also practiced basic card magic grips and holds, but that's another topic entirely). It kept me busy learning a skill during what would otherwise be downtime, and now, years later, I'm can still rattle off a quick riffle shuffle with no problems -- a skill I figured I'd need since I knew I'd be playing card games for the rest of my life.

I'm not saying you have to go that hard core. But if you're complaining about your shuffling skills, the only way to get better is just sit down and practice shuffling.

Netflix and Shuffle.

@Gaffa: I am not entirely clear on what you are saying. Perhaps I should explain my view more clearly:

- With Daisy I use Old Book of Lore all the time, often twice during my turn (with two copues in play). I draw three cards, pick one and shuffle the other two into my deck.

- One time I drew my personal and my random basic weakness (along with some other card I do not remember). I decided to take the third card and shuffled the weaknesses back into my deck. Since the weaknesses are such significant cards, I paid more attention to where they were in the deck, so I shuffled and shuffled and shuffled until I truly could not tell where in the deck they were.

- Next turn, I drew The Necronomicon again when I used Old Book of Lore. Drawing it again was fine (it could, to my knowledge, be any card in the deck, including one of the three top ones) and again did I pick another card and shuffled The Necronomicon back. And again I found myself thinking about where the card was until I shuffled so long, I lost track.

- Since shuffling took a long time, I was asking myself if there was a faster way of doing it.

I know that a randomization of the deck can result in any possible arrangement, including any "order" (alphabetical, card number etc.). The point is not to mix up the deck, but to make it impossible for me to know anything about the order of the cards in the deck.

Since the Deck wad randomized before, I would not even have to actually shuffle it, if there was some method to put the known cards back into the deck without me knowing where.

And it does matter where a card is when I start shuffling. E.g. if I put the Necronomicon on top of the deck and riffle it, it would still be one of the two top cards and it could not possbly have gone to the bottom. If I put it in the middle, it had to be either near the top or near the bottom of the deck after one riffle (so if I did not see it during the next few draws, I could be pretty sure not to see it for a couple more). I had to riffle and cut unevenly multiple times to be sure that the card could be literally anywhere in the deck.

The way I currently do it is alternating Mongean and Overhand Shuffles with uneven cuts (because those are common ways to shuffle cards where I come from). The method is sufficiently random, but still time consuming, since I have to do several runs before I "lose" the known card.

So, yes, training my manual dexterity would be a solution. But I am an IT person, we're trained to think: "Oh, this looks tedious and repetetive. Perhaps there is a lazier way to do it?" and then spend lots of time and resources to find that way.

Probably the easiest method would be to ask another person to just put the cards somewhere into my deck without me looking - although, knowing humans, I could still be pretty sure that they would rarely choose to put it on the top or bottom...

If you want to get lost the track of the cards, I suggest following:

Use mash/riffle technique

1. Divide deck into 2 piles

2. Put the card in the middle of one of the 2 piles

3. Riffle the piles together. Now the card should be somewhere in the middle of the stack.

4. Divide the stack into 2 piles again. Now you can't be sure if the card went to the bottom of the pile A or to the top of pile B.

5. Riffle 6 more times. The card should travel randomly in the deck.

6. Uneven cut at the end. I prefer 1/3 to 2/3 of the stack.

Should be good enought. Doesn't take much time.

I just do 3 alternations of the mashing and overhand (but alternate the overhand between the top and bottom). Takes about 30 seconds.

Pre-game:

Stack shuffle the deck. Follow up with a standard shuffle.

Standard shuffle (used pre-game and each time you shuffle):

1. Cut deck roughly in half.

2. Riffle shuffle. An overhand weave can be substituted.

3. "Strip" the deck. This is done by taking roughly the middle 1/3 out and putting it on top of the deck.

4. Repeat steps 1-3 three more times.

Four riffle-strip combinations will completely randomize a 33-card deck.

Ok, so there are a lot of different ways people like to shuffle their decks. But it seems, the only thing to do when shuffling your deck is to do a series of consecutive shuffles and cuts.

So "Netflix and Shuffle" it is...

When creating a deck, what do you do? You have 3 different classes of card + weaknesses, how do you mix it all up? I usually chuck in the weaknesses in with the smallest pile, then I deal out from each pile into a new set of three piles, I then combine the new piles into the 33 card deck, then cut an riffle shuffle a few times, is that random enough?

When I start a game, unless I continue directly from a previous one, my deck will be ordered because I like to review it snd make sure everything is there. So I have to shuffle it quite a bit. The main goal is not to just randomize the deck, but to make sure I know nothing of the order of cards in the deck and to break up the "pairs" most cards will be sorted into when creating the deck.

I usually do a combination of those methods, you may know them by another name:

a) "Irish shuffle"/"washing":

That is how the little kids do it: Just spread your cards facedown on the table and shove them around with your hands randomly until you honestly have no idea what is where. Then just collect them all and put them back together into a neat stack.

This is nothing I do at the start of games, because it is too messy and takes too much space, but I actually do this when I created a deck at home to play later or to take to another location to play.

b) "cutting" the deck

Take a pile of the top cards of a deck and put the pile of the remaining cards on top of it.

(example: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 => 11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

You can either cut perfectly with two exact halves of the deck or unevenly with two piles of different size. This does not much to randomize the deck, but the middle cards will be at the top and bottom now and the top and bottom cards in the middle. If you do a series of (perfect or near perfect) cuts, this will do (absolutely or nearly) nothing to the original order.

c) "overhand"

This is the standard way to shuffle cards where I come from, everything else is rather outlandish here.

You hold the deck in one hand and use the thumb of your other hand to take the top 1-5 cards of the deck into that hand. You repeat that motion, putting the next couple of cards on top of the ones you collected before, until the whole deck is transferred from the first hand to the second.

(example: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 => 20,17,18,19,15,16,10,11,12,13,14,7,8,9,3,4,5,6,1,2)

This is essentially a series of very uneven random cuts, so you have to repeat this very often to really randomize the deck. The main problem is that "neighbors" in the deck are likely stay together. I often use this instead of just cutting the deck.

d) "riffle"/"weave"

In essence, you cut the deck evenly into two piles and then build a new deck from those piles, alternating between them. That can be done by either riffling the cards or by carefully shoving the piles into each other (there are several ways to do that in your hands or on the table face).

The alternation is not always (meant to be) perfect, but with a deck of around 30 cards and sleeves, you often come actually close.

(example: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 => 1,11,2,12,3,13,4,14,5,15,6,16,7,17,8,18,9,19,10,20)

The main advantage of this method is that (if done perfectly) no two cards previously adjacent to another stay together. Also cards from the second half of the deck are shuffled between ones of the first half.

The main drawback is that cards at the top stay near the top and cards at the bottom stay near the bottom. So if you started with your weakness at the bottom, you would need lots and lots of riffles to give it a chance to reach the top. And if cutting and riffling perfectly, you will actually know where it is the whole time.

e) "Mongean shuffle"

You just transfer your deck, card by card, from one hand to the other. When doing this you alternate between putting the next card on top of or at the bottom of your new stack.

(example: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 => 20,18,16,14,12,10,8,6,4,2,1,3,5,7,9,12,13,15,17,19)

So, this is not random at all, but it does a great job of placing cards in the deck far from the place they originally started, messing up any order that was there before.

...then cut an riffle shuffle a few times, is that random enough?

Riffle/weave and Mongean shuffle (when done perfectly) will actually not randomize your deck, but redistribute cards in a predetermined manner. "Unfortunately" the better you learn to do these, the closer you will get to perfection. Uneven cuts will not mix your cards a lot, but will introduce an element of randomness (unless you are a trained illusionist and always know exactly where you cut the deck, in this case have other persons cut the deck).

So I imagine the best way to do it is to alternate random with "mixy" methods. "Overhand" is a series of random uneven cuts, "riffling/weaving" is great for mixing top and bottom half together, "Mongean" is nice to get cards far from the place they originally started (or not).

Example:

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20

overhand =>

19,20,16,17,18,15,12,13,14,10,11,8,9,5,6,7,3,4,1,2

riffle =>

19,11,20,8,16,9,17,5,18,6,15,7,12,3,13,4,14,1,10,2

overhand =>

2,14,1,10,13,4,15,7,12,3,5,18,6,9,17,20,8,16,19,11

Mongean =>

11,16,20,9,18,3,7,4,10,14,2,1,13,15,12,5,6,17,8,19

That should do it, cards are mixed, cards where distributed from their orinial places to anywhere in the deck and you might have no idea anymore where what went.

You actually don't want to do a perfect riffle or weave. Like... Ever. Unless you're doing card magic or cheating.

What I recommend is switching the decks facing while you shuffle, maintaining that the face of the cards are unexposed to you always. So you will do the shuffle as the video above posted, but do it 2-3 times with the deck oriented one way, then switch the orientation and repeat it the other way. This should help you lose the cards quickly.

PS - I know what you're saying about knowing where the cards are. I used to be a horrible cheat at games, and part of that is noting where you put in the cards and shuffling them to your advantage. In this case, weaknesses at the bottom, and good cards at the top. I've trained my brain to let go of card positions and to not try to force a favorable outcome, and switching the deck orientation while shuffling helps.

You actually don't want to do a perfect riffle or weave. Like... Ever. Unless you're doing card magic or cheating.

Practically you'll rarely perform a perfect riffle/weave, but even for near-perfect shuffles the properties will mostly be applicable.

What I recommend is switching the decks facing while you shuffle, maintaining that the face of the cards are unexposed to you always. So you will do the shuffle as the video above posted, but do it 2-3 times with the deck oriented one way, then switch the orientation and repeat it the other way. This should help you lose the cards quickly.

It does change the properties though. When you do a weave shuffle you are moving cards from once center to the other extreme, and from the other center to below the extreme. Example - cards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, are cut perfectly in half. When I shuffle these they can go 1, 6, 2, 7, 3, 8, 4, 9, 5, 0, or they can go 6, 1, 7, 2, 8, 3, 9, 4, 0, 5. This is determined typically by the orientation of the deck, as your pattern of actually cutting / shuffling will typically force one of these based on which hand is holding the deck, and which is receiving the weave. Changing this order can mean a lot when you want to lose a card so long as you hide the face of the cards from your view.

Also, rather than simply cutting the deck, doing an overhand shuffle mixed between a short series of weaves can help maximize on the randomness, as any single pattern repeated will yield a pattern of results. While the overhand is the least "shuffled" of the different types, I think it perfectly breaks the patterning that other shuffling types bring into play. My typical shuffle is 2-4 weaves, 2-4 overhand, 2-4 weaves, 2-4 overhand, cut and done. I do always start from a sorted deck with a table shuffle (dealing out cards to piles) to ensure pairs are broken down, but mid game I never return to that.

I wonder though what would satisfy you then. You've said you are dissatisfied by finding the Necronomicon in the top 3 cards after shuffling, and then saying you are dissatisfied if you don't... Perhaps your issue is really a Hasty Generalization, where you are becoming too concerned over too small a sample size. Try taking your deck and removing about 10 cards, including the Necronomicon. Then put the Necronomicon back in and shuffle. After you complete the shuffle look at just the top 3 cards. Note whether or not the Necronomicon was present, and then repeat. Your deck size should be about 23-25 so the odds of this card being in the top 3 should be a bit over 10%. See if, after about 100 itterations or more using the same shuffling method, this holds constant. If it does, then consider what you can do to vary your shuffling more. If not - then you're doing well enough.

That is the advantage of objective issues, versus subjective. I can give advice if you want advice, but if you just blow it off as subjective then what is the point? Do a real test for yourself to see where you stand, and make changes based on the objective observations only.

Another fun video to share on this subject

It does change the properties though. When you do a weave shuffle you are moving cards from once center to the other extreme, and from the other center to below the extreme. Example - cards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, are cut perfectly in half. When I shuffle these they can go 1, 6, 2, 7, 3, 8, 4, 9, 5, 0, or they can go 6, 1, 7, 2, 8, 3, 9, 4, 0, 5.

I know what you mean, and I agree that the exact outcome of the shuffle can be varied by changing the deck orientation, by cutting unevenly or weaving imperfectly.

Still, there are invariants that are always true for this method like "cards never change their previous order within a pile". That means I know that after 1 shuffle, in your example "0" cannot be on top and I cannot draw "2" before I have drawn "1", as long as we disregard the extreme case where you "cut" the single top/bottom card from the deck and "weave" it straight to the bottom/top.

And these things will stay true through consecutive weaves until the relevant cards (i.e. "0", "1" and "2") get shuffled to the position where the deck is cut before the next shuffle. This will take longer for more cards in the deck.

Also, rather than simply cutting the deck, doing an overhand shuffle mixed between a short series of weaves can help maximize on the randomness, as any single pattern repeated will yield a pattern of results.

Exactly. That was what I started with and I agree that it sufficient to lose the known cards in the deck.

My original question was if someone knew a way to reach a similar result with less time. With Daisy, I often have to shuffle my deck once or twice per turn and this takes distinctly longer than moving her or performing a skill test.

The only solution so far was to get better and faster at shuffling to save time.

I wonder though what would satisfy you then. You've said you are dissatisfied by finding the Necronomicon in the top 3 cards after shuffling, and then saying you are dissatisfied if you don't...

For the concrete example of the Necronomicon, I would be satisfied if after drawing The Necronomicon with Old Book of Lore and shuffling it back into my deck, any one card in the deck, from the topmost to the bottommost, could, to my knowledge, be The Necronomicon with equal probability.

*Knowing* that The Necronomicon could, under any circumstances, not be one of the top three cards (or knowing that the Necronomicon is unlikely to be at the bottom and thus more likely to be found near the top) would be unacceptable. This is knowledge I am not meant to have and could give me an unfair advantage in the game.

I can give advice if you want advice, but if you just blow it off as subjective then what is the point? Do a real test for yourself to see where you stand, and make changes based on the objective observations only.

I apologize if I made the impression to have just dismissed your opinion. I agree that introducing a degree of randomness i to the shuffling process will do much to obscure the exact position of a card inside the deck. But these small variations cannot change elemental properties of a given shuffling method and thus are insufficient to *completely* neutralize all knowledge about the order of the deck.

I recommend watching the 2nd video I linked. According to this mathematician it takes only 7 shuffles for the deck to be considered random enough to be legitimately random. This isn't "7 perfect shuffles" either, it is simply 7 times with a weave. They use a riffle, but a riffle and weave are effectively the same, with the only difference between them is the treatment of the cards. For cards you can accept damage on, or do not use sleeves on, you can use a riffle. For cards you want to protect, and sleeve, a weave is appropriate. The result is the same.

By incorporating a few overhand shuffles between a few weaves, I contend it is legitimately random enough that you truly can consider it an equal chance of any card arriving on top, and would recommend, before you assume it is not random, that you do a test with 100+ shuffles with a marked card, placed at the top of the deck, and record where it appeared in the deck, then repeat this process with the exact same original position and shuffle pattern to see the true results of the randomness.

I do not dispute that. I did watch the video (very nice, by the way). The math is sound. I totally agree with you that several weaves, mixed with overhand shuffles completely randomize the deck.

My point is that seven shuffles for one action during the game feel awfully long. And the way I play Daisy, I do it all the time. Often twice during my turn.

But the question is not really how to shuffle a whole deck (because the deck is already shuffled and I only know the top 3 cards), but how to vanish the two cards into the deck in a way that they could appear *anywhere*.

Saving time is the main goal, but any acceptable solution must guarantee that the position of both cards in the deck is completely obscured.

Shuffling is one solution and in this case, the fastest and shortest combination of shuffles that meet the requirements would be best.

I may not like it, but simply learning to shuffle faster is also a practical solution, since it would save time without compromising the requirements. Learning to do it automatically without thinking would also help, since other actions could potentially be taken while shuffling the deck.

But asking some other person to just put the cards into my deck (top, bottom, middle, anywhere, doesn't matter) without me looking, though impractical, would also work. As would playing too tired or too inebriated to really know anything during the game.

I recommend watching the 2nd video I linked. According to this mathematician it takes only 7 shuffles for the deck to be considered random enough to be legitimately random. This isn't "7 perfect shuffles" either, it is simply 7 times with a weave. They use a riffle, but a riffle and weave are effectively the same, with the only difference between them is the treatment of the cards. For cards you can accept damage on, or do not use sleeves on, you can use a riffle. For cards you want to protect, and sleeve, a weave is appropriate. The result is the same.

By incorporating a few overhand shuffles between a few weaves, I contend it is legitimately random enough that you truly can consider it an equal chance of any card arriving on top, and would recommend, before you assume it is not random, that you do a test with 100+ shuffles with a marked card, placed at the top of the deck, and record where it appeared in the deck, then repeat this process with the exact same original position and shuffle pattern to see the true results of the randomness.

That's with 52 cards. 33 should take only 4 or 5.