English

A Random Card Shuffling Process

Probability 2024-10-09 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

Consider a randomly shuffled deck of 2n2n cards with nn red cards and nn black cards. We study the average number of moves it takes to go from a randomly shuffled deck to a deck that alternates in color by performing the following move: If the top card and the bottom card of the deck differ in color place the top card at the bottom of the deck, otherwise, insert the top card randomly in the deck. We use tools from combinatorics, probability, and linear algebra to model this process as a finite Markov chain.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2206.04614,
  title  = {A Random Card Shuffling Process},
  author = {Joel Brewster Lewis and Mehr Rai},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2206.04614},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

26 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-24T11:45:25.624Z