Shuffling

Shuffling is a procedure used to randomize a deck of playing cards to provide an element of chance in card games. Shuffling is often followed by a cut, to help ensure that the shuffler has not manipulated the outcome. A common shuffling technique is called the riffle or dovetail shuffle, in which half of the deck is held in each hand with the thumbs inward, then cards are released by the thumbs so that they fall to the table interleaved. Many also lift the cards up after a riffle, forming what is called a bridge which puts the cards back into place. This can also be done by placing the halves flat on the table with their rear corners touching, then lifting the back edges with the thumbs while pushing the halves together. While this method is more difficult, it is often used in casinos because it minimizes the risk of exposing cards during the shuffle. There are two types of perfect riffle shuffles: if the top card moves to be 2nd from the top then it is an in shuffle, otherwise it is known as an out shuffle which preserves both the top and bottom cards.

Riffle shuffling does, however, carry a risk of damaging cards from excessive bending. Casinos often replace their playing cards to prevent cheating from players that detect deformations in the cards. However, collectible card game cards are considerably less replaceable than playing cards, and CCG cards can be damaged from riffle shuffling, even when protected with card sleeves.

Because standard shuffling techniques are seen as weak, and in order to avoid inside jobs where employees collaborate with gamblers by performing inadequate shuffles, many casinos employ automatic shuffling machines. They also save time that would otherwise be spent shuffling, allowing several more hands per hour to be played and increasing the profitability of the table. These machines are also used to lessen repetitive motion stress injuries to a dealer. Note that the shuffling machines have to be carefully designed, as they can generate biased shuffles otherwise: the most recent shuffling machines are computer-controlled, though they have not yet fully been integrated into gaming.

Play is a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment. Play is commonly associated with children, but positive psychology has stressed that play is imperative for all higher-functioning animals, even adult humans.

The rites of play are evident throughout nature and are perceived in people and animals, although generally only in those species possessing highly complex nervous systems such as mammals and birds. Play is most frequently associated with the cognitive development and socialization of those engaged in developmental processes and the young. Play often entertains props, tools, animals, or toys in the context of learning and recreation. That is, some hypothesize that play is preparation of skills that will be used later. Others appeal to modern findings in neuroscience to argue that play is actually about training a general flexibility of mind – including highly adaptive practices like training multiple ways to do the same thing, or playing with an idea that is good enough in the hopes of maybe making it better.

Some play has clearly defined goals and when structured with rules is called a game, whereas, other play exhibits no such goals nor rules and is considered to be unstructured in the literature. Play promotes broaden and build behaviors as well as mental states of happiness – including flow.

Play has traditionally been given little attention by behavioral ecologists. Edward O. Wilson wrote in Sociobiology that No behavior has proved more ill defined, elusive, controversial and even unfashionable than play. Though it received little attention in the early decades of ethnology, and instead only existed as a matter of study within human psychology, there is now a considerable body of scientific literature resulting from research on the subject. Play does not have the central theoretical framework that exists in other areas of biology.

Ethnologists frequently divide play into three general categories: Social play, locomotors play and object play. Locomotors play is the pretend playing that a very young animal participates in when alone. The jumping and spinning characteristic of locomotors play can best be seen in young goats. Researchers have theorized that locomotors play helps the cells in the cerebellum of the brain to develop connections. Types of play listed by psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Brown expand upon these basic categories to include fantasy and transformational play as well as body, object, social. The National Institute for Play describes the previous five play types, as well as the play types attunement and narrative.

The broaden and build behaviors it fosters may have even greater value for adults than children. The mental state of flow is also a major component of play, and has itself been associated with things like creativity and happiness. Brown often quotes Brian Sutton-Smith's insight: the opposite of play is not work, it is depression. 6] Examples of adult play abound e.g. the arts, but also curiosity driven science.

Tim Brown explains that a value like a bit of shamelessness during the creative process is extremely important in adult designers.

Play may allow people to practice useful habits like learned optimism, which might help manage existential fears. Play also offers the opportunity to learn things that may not have otherwise been explicitly or formally taught e.g. how to use, and deal with, deceit and misinformation. Thus, even though play is only one of many habits of an effective adult, it remains a necessary one.