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THE ACHILLES' HEEL OF THE GSR SHUFFLE: A NOTE ON NEW AGE SOLITAIRE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2004

Anke van Zuylen
Affiliation:
Operations Research & Industrial Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, E-mail: frans@cs.cornell.edu; anke@orie.cornell.edu
Frans Schalekamp
Affiliation:
Operations Research & Industrial Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, E-mail: frans@cs.cornell.edu; anke@orie.cornell.edu

Abstract

We show that winning the game New Age Solitaire only depends on the number of rising sequences in the deck used. The probability of winning for the special case of a new deck that is shuffled using the GSR shuffle (and two variants) are studied. We show that this game pinpoints the Achilles' heel of the GSR shuffle as is demonstrated using the variation distance.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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References

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