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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Glyfair" data-source="post: 2951920" data-attributes="member: 53">This reminds me of the "perfect bridge deal" stories.  This is when every player is dealt all the cards of a single suit. The odds are  2,235,197,406,895,366,368,301,559,999 to 1.  Yet, almost every year during the height of bridge (the mid-20th century) there would be a newspaper story about that being dealt.  That many bridge deals weren't dealt.  In fact, I'm not sure it's possible that many have been dealt ever.Analysis by the experts traces it to three things.  The first is the obvious, lying.  A hand comes close and they want a story so they report it as a perfect bridge deal (helped by the fact that newspapers would actually print these stories without any evidence beyond the players anecdotes).  The second is the imperfect shuffle.  People rarely actually shuffle cards randomly.  In fact, when computer dealt hands started taking hold there were a lot of complaints about "freaky hands."  Analysis showed that the hands were within statistical expectations.  The problem was that people were used to the imperfect shuffles which tended to lead to flat hands.The last is also obvious, cheating.  A good magician can duplicate this deal many ways very easily among non-experts in sleight of hand.I think these examples here are very good possiblities for most stories of straight 18 rolls.  Plus, there are always oddities.  However, when things are that far out of line of expectations, there is probably something else going on.</blockquote>

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