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Poker Random Number Generator question?

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  1. James Wilson James Wilson is offline

    NJ
    United States

    Posts: 154
    Joined: Feb 09

    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 12:47am)

    I was thinking the other day, How do RNG's work? What I mean by that is, Does the RNG constantly generate numbers (cards) and the poker program only grabs the next number (card) such as a lottery ball machine or are the numbers (cards) "shuffled" and are put in a random yet predetermined way and only the next number (card) is picked such as a real deck of cards?
    Does anyone know the real answer?
  2. RevG RevG is offline

    Edmonton
    Canada

    Posts: 551
    Joined: Sep 06

    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 1:03am) in reply to James Wilson

    Full Tilt Poker = Continuous Shuffle
    pokerstars = Not Continuous Shuffle (or predetermined if you will)
  3. maroon21 maroon21 is offline

    United States

    Posts: 323
    Joined: Dec 09

    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 1:39am) in reply to RevG

     
    Originally Posted by RevG View Post

    Full Tilt Poker = Continuous Shuffle
    pokerstars = Not Continuous Shuffle (or predetermined if you will)

  4. Demetri Demetri is offline

    Champaign, IL
    United States

    Posts: 184
    Joined: Jun 06

    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 4:50am) in reply to James Wilson

    I know that some sites post their algorithm on the website. Its insane!!!!
  5. iatetheredcrayon iatetheredcrayon is offline

    Austin, TX
    United States

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    Joined: Mar 06

    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 7:36am) in reply to Demetri

     
    Originally Posted by Demetri View Post

    I know that some sites post their algorithm on the website. Its insane!!!!

    It doesn't really matter if you have the algorithm, depending on the seeds they are using, and how often they let the seeds reset the algorithm. One of the seeds that I've heard they use is weather conditions, like wind speeds, temperature, barometric pressure, which is pretty cool, because those things are constantly changing, making it hard for anyone to nail. Also, the worst seed to use is time which is constant. One of the very early poker sites used a very simple time-seed based algorithm back in the day, and some people cracked it.
  6. persuade persuade is offline

    Posts: 281
    Joined: Nov 06

    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 7:56am) in reply to iatetheredcrayon

     
    Originally Posted by iatetheredcrayon View Post


    It doesn't really matter if you have the algorithm, depending on the seeds they are using, and how often they let the seeds reset the algorithm. One of the seeds that I've heard they use is weather conditions, like wind speeds, temperature, barometric pressure, which is pretty cool, because those things are constantly changing, making it hard for anyone to nail. Also, the worst seed to use is time which is constant. One of the very early poker sites used a very simple time-seed based algorithm back in the day, and some people cracked it.

    really?...ive never heard of anyone "cracking" an algorithm for RNG...which site was this at?
  7. PokerStarsMichaelJ PokerStarsMichaelJ is offline PokerStars Security

    Sydney
    Australia

    Posts: 15
    Joined: Apr 08

    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 8:16am) in reply to James Wilson

    Hi,

    At PokerStars, we use two sources of random information:
    • user input, including summary of mouse movements and events timing, collected from client software
    • true hardware random number generator developed by Intel, which uses thermal noise as an entropy source
    Both of these sources generate a huge stream of 1s and 0s. Eg: 01000100111010010001111010010101010101111101010

    Those two streams of data are then mixed into one to generate a string of 498 digits.

    Those digits are then used to select cards off the top of the deck.

    So, in the first instance, we need a card from 0-51 to select the first card of the deck. So, the server takes the first 6 digits (2^6 = 64) to select a random number.

    Take the first six digits from the above stream - 010001 - which converts to 17. You can simulate this in MS Excel with the formula =bin2dec(010001). Thus, the server takes the 17th card from the "starting" deck and that becomes the first card on the deck that will be dealt. This process is then repeated 50 more times, until there is one card remaining, which will obviously be the last card on the bottom of the deck.

    The gaming server then asks for a new deck from the shuffle server, and deals it out.

    This is also explained on our website at:

    http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/features/security/

    If you have any further queries about this, feel free to email us at support@pokerstars.com

    Sincerely,

    Michael J
    PokerStars Game Security Team
  8. SuperNovaEli SuperNovaEli is offline

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    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 10:22am) in reply to persuade

     
    Originally Posted by persuade View Post

    really?...ive never heard of anyone "cracking" an algorithm for RNG...which site was this at?

    Planet Poker, I believe
  9. SuperNovaEli SuperNovaEli is offline

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    Joined: Jan 10

    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 10:25am) in reply to SuperNovaEli

     
    Originally Posted by SuperNovaEli View Post

    Planet Poker, I believe

    Which I also believe no longer exist. Players transfered to Bodog
  10. MadTiger MadTiger is offline

    Akron, OH
    United States

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    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 11:07am) in reply to Demetri

     
    Originally Posted by Demetri View Post

    I know that some sites post their algorithm on the website. Its insane!!!!

    It's not insane, it's disclosure.

    As a management consultant, I agree.

    As a former software engineer, I agree.

    As a poker player, I definitely agree.
  11. SuperNovaEli SuperNovaEli is offline

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    Joined: Jan 10

    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 5:42pm) in reply to MadTiger

     
    Originally Posted by MadTiger View Post

    It's not insane, it's disclosure.

    As a management consultant, I agree.

    As a former software engineer, I agree.

    As a poker player, I definitely agree.

    [ ] Dumb
    [ ] Crazy
    [x] Smart
  12. SuperNovaEli SuperNovaEli is offline

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    Feb 7th, 2010 (2/7/2010 5:46pm) in reply to James Wilson

    +1
  13. MadProfesor MadProfesor is offline

    Los Angeles, CA
    United States

    Posts: 10,384
    Joined: Jan 06

    Feb 8th, 2010 (2/8/2010 8:51pm) in reply to James Wilson

    post less
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