I’d typically assume that after most card games, the cards become at least semi-ordered in some way, necessitating shuffling. However, after a standard game of war, I can’t quite figure out how the arrangement would become less random, since the winning and losing card stay together. If they’re indeed mathematically “less random,” after the game, why?
In: 312
Entirely depends on your definition of random. Off the top of my head:
* When comparing neighbouring cards, you should find next to no pairs.
* When looking at top cards – say, aces+kings+queens – you would find them more frequently in top side of the deck – games end with losing deck having no good cards.
* If the order of winning/losing card is maintained, that’s a dead giveaway – and unlike other poster said, we did do it religiously. Nothing like realising you’re about to lose an ace because of what you did two cycles ago.
The question is – what do *you* consider random. Is it ability to deduce war was played? Not very random. Is it difficulty to shuffle into no visible bias? Then it’s almost random. Technically, every combination cards can take up in a deck is equally random, so it becomes more of a question of “what things would you check to determine if it’s a random shuffle?” You determined one: you’d look for good (which ones precisely would depend on the game) cards at the bottom and clumped up. To this test, war is fairly random. It introduces other biases to the deck – but they might not be ones you care about.
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