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http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=1095

Here's Looking At You, Deck

At a Grand Prix Trial you are running at your local store, a spectator points out a player to you and asks you to watch the way he shuffles. Before the player's match, you witness him riffle shuffle with the cards facing himself once, and then once with the cards facing away. He repeats this cycle several more times, once towards himself, once away, before presenting his deck to his opponent. You step in and ask the player some questions about his shuffling method. He answers that he always shuffles that way so his cards don't develop a bend in them from riffle shuffling all in one direction.

What do you do?

As long as after all the shuffling the deck is pseudo-randomized when it's presented to his opponent, I don't see any problem on that :)

This is an example of TE-Insufficient Shuffling. Any time that a card or cards are revealed to a player, they are no longer considered randomized. That player’s deck must be sufficiently randomized after those cards are revealed.

The penalty is a Warning, and I would additionally advise the player in a proper shuffling pattern, suggesting a combination of riffle, mash, and pile shuffling.

My apologizes for my bad English but I don't understand the scenario. What do "facing himself“ and ”facing away“ mean here?
A) The cards are always face-down. ”Himself“ = upper corner towards shuffling player. ”Away“ = upper corner towards his opponent. (Or the opposite.)
B) ”Himself“ = the player shuffles face-up. ”Away" = the player shuffles face-down. (Or the opposite.)

For our purposes here, facing himself means that if he looked down while shuffling, he could see the front of the cards. Facing away means the opposite, even if he were looking at the deck he couldn't see the front of the cards.

On 02/07/2014 15:54, Joaquín Pérez wrote:
>
> As long as after all the shuffling the deck is pseudo-randomized when
> it's presented to his opponent, I don't see any problem on that :)
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I think that is the point it is not. He has not used different types of
shuffling methods and by looking at the cards when shuffling at least
some of them are known to him. The deck is not randomized so we would
penalise accordingly.

Graham

Clearly this is not a good way to shuffle but please for gods sake don't
recommend pile shuffling.
On Jul 2, 2014 9:21 AM, “Graham Theobalds” <

Originally posted by Sam Sherman:

but please for gods sake don't recommend pile shuffling

Pile shuffling is fine, as long as it's part of a varied routine - as was suggested in that original post:

Robert Brown
suggesting a combination of riffle, mash, and pile shuffling.

derf… forgot to add: Pile shuffling is a valuable tool when counting to 60 (or 40). I believe I will continue to recommend “a combination of riffle, mash, and pile shuffling”.

First (or right after the call) i would thank the spectator for pointing out the shuffling of that player.

What we have here is a player that insuficient randomize his library, with his current method he is able to determine the position of one or more cards by shuffling towards himself. Even if he doesnt know the exact position, the possibility to locate a certain card inside your deck (for example one specific card within the last cards) makes the library not shuffeled properly. By presenting his deck to the opponent he sends a message that his library is randomized, but in this scenario is definitely not.

So this is a TE-Insufficient Shuffling, the penalty for this infraction is a Warning. To solve the problem the player simply has to shuffle his library in a way that neitherthe opponent or the player himself is able to determine the position of a card inside the library. If the player is afraid that riffle shuffling is damaging his cards, he can choose to use another method. In fact, its even recommended to use more then one method to shuffle the library, and if he uses sleeves the danger of damaging cards is minimized. The Annotated IPG gives also a good reason to let players shuffle theyr deck instead of the judge:

As a general practice, judges do not perform the shuffle, players do. This prevents the judges from getting involved if sleeves become broken during the shuffle, or if a card falls out. It also prevents the judge from getting blamed if the player draws poorly following the shuffle.

Edit: removing typonese

Edited Auzmyn Oberweger (July 2, 2014 04:33:36 PM)

From the IPG “Any time cards in a deck could be seen, including during shuffling, it is no longer shuffled, even if the player only knows the position of one or two cards. Players are expected to take care in shuffling not to reveal cards to themselves, their teammates, or their opponents.”

We know that the player shuffling can indeed see at least one card in his deck when he shuffles towards himself. That fits the above statement and therefore the penalty of TE-Insufficient shuffling. A warning should be issued.

We should also take a moment to explain to the player the proper way of shuffling and suggest, as others have noted above, a varied way of shuffling. Also from the IPG: A player should shuffle his or her deck using multiple methods. Patterned pile-shuffling alone is not sufficient.

Going to MTR 3.4:

“A player unintentionally fails to sufficiently shuffle his or her deck or portion of his or her deck before presenting it
to his or her opponent. A deck is not shuffled if the judge believes a player could know the position or distribution of
one or more cards in his or her deck. ”

So, this is TE- Insufficient shuffling. I'd issue a warning to the player who's deck it is, and take the chance to educate both players about correct shuffling. I'd thank the spectator for pointing it out, and give a time extension depending on how long it took. I'd check if any part of the deck is known (Only likely if the player is tutoring something to the top of his deck), then ask it to be shuffled again.

This is naturally assuming I don't suspect any malarky with his shuffling method.

Originally posted by Patrick Cossel:

From the IPG “Any time cards in a deck could be seen, including during shuffling, it is no longer shuffled, even if the player only knows the position of one or two cards. Players are expected to take care in shuffling not to reveal cards to themselves, their teammates, or their opponents.”

The important word here is the “could” in the first sentence. Because he could see cards the deck is insufficiently shuffled. TE-IS, warning. Instruct players on correct shuffling procedures. If he was shuffling his opponents deck in this manner I think I'd be forced to give a LEC after the first face up shuffle.

Without reading the comments:
TE-Insufficient shuffling: Warning.
Explain that a soon as person in the match can see one card of the library, the library is no longer shuffled.
Then I'll suggest a combination of pile-shuffling, mash shuffling and rifle shuffling. The I'll have him shuffle the deck again in the appropriate manner.

After reading the comments:
Time extension: Only if the round started already (You watch before the match starts), this could/should happen before the clock starts.
Thanking the spectator: Good point!

I would explain him that his shuffle method can be used for cheating, while I don't think cheating is his intention. As soon as a card can be seen by a player and her relative position can be known because of that a deck is not sufficiently randomized anymore.
Therefore I would issue TE-IS: Warning and suggest a mix of different methods to him.
Afterwards I would try to find the player who gave me the tip, thank him and inform him I took care of the problem.

Edited Markus Dietrich (July 3, 2014 05:48:39 AM)