AI and cognitive psychology rant (getting more and more OT - tell me if I should shut up)

[Andrew Dalke]

Alex:
> But I can for example observe the way people play
> bridge, and their rationalizations about why they've done X or Y;

I recall reading that computer generated shuffles, based on PRNGs,
gave different hand distributions than expected by expert bridge players.
That's because at least seven shuffles are needed to remove local
order from the deck (made because of how tricks are played, or
how people arrange cards in their hand)
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/winning_number.html

How much does that skew affect the sorts of bridge play you are
talking about?  On the one hand, it seems significant given that
articles like the above said "many bridge players take advantage of the
non-randomness of seemingly shuffled cards".  On the other hand,
it doesn't seem like it makes that much difference, since you haven't
mentioned it ("except for the montecarlo sample").  Do bridge players
these days follow the 7 shuffle guideline, or use computer-based
shuffling?  Or do the analyses ignore the non-random influence (perhaps
on the belief that considering such is improper)?  Or are there
indeed stratagies based on good Baysian or other sound methods
which take that into account?  They would of course be invalid for
when the cards are randomized, but I suspect give an edge for most
games.

                    Andrew
                    dalke at dalkescientific.com