Card rules · 2026-10-29
Single-Card Dealing and Packet Dealing Produce Different Hands
Keep eight practice cards in a fixed order, labelled 1 through 8. A and B receive four cards each, starting with A. Dealing one card at a time and dealing packets of two produce…
Keep eight practice cards in a fixed order, labelled 1 through 8. A and B receive four cards each, starting with A. Dealing one card at a time and dealing packets of two produce different hands even though the deck order and final counts stay the same.
One at a time
Deal one card to A, one to B, and repeat. A receives 1, 3, 5 and 7. B receives 2, 4, 6 and 8.
Two at a time
Now reset the same sequence. Give two consecutive cards to A, two to B, and repeat. A receives 1, 2, 5 and 6; B receives 3, 4, 7 and 8. Each player still has four cards, but the hands differ.
A complete dealing instruction therefore needs the starting recipient, direction, packet size and total allocation. “Four cards each” specifies only the final count. It does not reconstruct how those cards reached each player.
Changing the first recipient is another separate change
Reset the one-at-a-time deal and give B the first card. B now receives 1, 3, 5, 7, while A receives 2, 4, 6, 8. That result comes from changing the starting recipient, not the packet size. Change one dealing condition at a time so each difference in the final hands has a clear cause.