4 minute read
Have you ever shuffled a card deck? Did you know that the card combination you end up with after that shuffle is unique? That means that no one before you has ever obtained those cards in the same order, and that no one in the future never will! Why? Because by shuffling these 52 cards, you made it mathematically impossible for them to appear twice in the same order.
In mathematics, to know how many different ways you can organise a certain amount of elements belonging to a whole, the factorial function is used. Applied to a 52-card deck (a standard one, minus the jokers), we will talk about the factorial 52. In this case, we want to calculate the number of ways it is possible to align these 52 cards. And it looks a little something like this:
52! = 52∗51∗50∗…∗3∗2∗1
The result is quite hard to fathom…but here it goes:
80 658 175 170 943 878 571 660 636 856 403 766 975 289 505 440 883 277 824 000 000 000 000
Trillion x Trillion
We wouldn’t have come by this fun fact if it wasn’t for British comedian, actor, host and writer Stephen Fry, who talked about it in a popular YouTube video. Here’s how he explains the factorial function so you can grasp it:
“If every star in our galaxy had a trillion planets, each with a trillion people living on them. And each of these people had a trillion packs of cards, and somehow they managed to shuffle them all a thousand times per second, and they’ve been doing that since the Big Bang, they would only just now be starting to repeat shuffles.”
Your turn to play !
Shuffling cards can be done several ways. You can go for a simple reverse shuffle, a hindu shuffle (more advanced), or a riffle shuffle. In his video, Stephen Fry makes quite an impression showing off these different techniques. If you want to give it a go or see it done in the flesh, there's no better place than the VIAGE gaming tables, of course!
Amongst our most popular card games, you’ll find: blackjack, baccarat and the 3-card poker. Note that, even if card players tend to think strategically, it doesn’t make all games hard to play. For instance, it won’t take you more than 5 minutes to wrap your head around the rules of blackjack. Your goal: beat the card dealer. Ask for as many cards as you’d like, as long as their sum doesn’t exceed 21.
In order to win you must be prepared to lose sometime. And leave one or two cards showing.
– Van Morrison
James Bond’s favourite, the baccarat is a game you might have seen in some of his movies. Your mission here: guess who has the strongest cards, the bank (hence, the casino), or the player. The colours here don’t matter and the cards worth can’t exceed 9.
As for the 3-card poker, also called punto banco, the players don’t play against each other, but against the card dealer. The concept: once the players have placed their bet, they each receive three cards, dealer included. The one who skips a turn loses their bet and the one who continues to play with the received cards places a new bet of the same amount.
At VIAGE, you get to play several variations of poker that are very popular, such as the Ultimate Texas Hold’em and the Caribbean Stud Poker. And when the time comes to take a break, get comfortable in one of the CINNA bar seats, and sip on a delicious cocktail while refining your strategy. If you feel hungry, head over to the VIAGE Grill, where you’ll be able to enjoy our “license to grill”.
