Continuous Shuffle - Online poker RNGs...

[Talking Poker]

I was wondering about Full Tilt's Random Number Generator (just out of curiosity), so I emailed them about it. The response I got pointed me , which confirms what I suspected.

In live play, the deck is shuffled and the order of all the cards is fixed throughout the hand (obviously). Cards are then dealt out as needed.

Online, it's more secure (and more efficient) to continuously shuffle the deck. No, it's not literally, actively shuffling, but the order of the deck is not preset. When cards are needed, then RNG selects random cards from what remains of the active deck and displays them, creating a "new" deck (less cards in it) for the next request.

What this means is there is no such thing as rabbit hunting online. In other words, if you fold 22 preflop, and the flop comes A22, no, you would NOT have flopped quads against the other guys Aces Full had you played your 22. Because by clicking "call" instead of clicking "fold," the timing of the hand would have been thrown off, even if only by a fraction of a second (let alone how that would change the timing of the action behind you).

In a way, I like this, because it means the cards are being dealt in a truly random fashion, which is how you should think about poker anyway. But quite honestly, I really don't like it. What I like the least is that when my opponent shoves in with a flush draw or a gutshot or an underpair to my overpair or whatever the case may be, the TIMING of me clicking call with literally affects if he will get there or not. It's like a slot machine. If I click call right NOW, he gets there. If I had waited one millisecond longer, he wouldn't have.

I know it shouldn't, but that really irks me. I don't want to have any control over what's coming.