How We Learned to Cheat at Online Poker: A Study in Software Security (1999)

Re:How We Learned to Cheat at Online Poker: A Study in Softw... by rav on Monday July 20, 2015 @02:19PM (#9917933)

That is essentially the same as the algorithm in the article, which was Figure 3:

    for (i is 1 to 52)
        Swap i with random position between i and 52

After i iterations, the first i entries are your "shuffled", and the last 52 - i entries are your "cards". "random.choice(cards)" corresponds to picking a "random position between i and 52".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How We Learned to Cheat at Online Poker: A Study in Softw... by lmm on Monday July 20, 2015 @02:38PM (#9918069)

But they didn't do that - they picked a random position between 1 (not i) and 52 each time, which gives a biased shuffle. Even if their randomness had been perfect, this would have been problematic.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How We Learned to Cheat at Online Poker: A Study in Softw... by eximius on Monday July 20, 2015 @02:24PM (#9917967)

I suppose. I guess I just prefer the more direct, naive algorithm when the performance gain would seem to be so small. (not that I've profiled it or anything :/)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How We Learned to Cheat at Online Poker: A Study in Softw... by rav on Monday July 20, 2015 @02:27PM (#9917999)

From a CS theory perspective, I would say it's two implementations of the same algorithm, or two ways of phrasing the same algorithm. The most natural formulation in your eyes is probably not the same as the most natural formulation in the eyes of the article author.

[ Parent | on HN ]