Hub selection randomness question

[Zero_1627]

Question: are available hubs actually randomized? My impression so far is that one players' hubs are randomized, and the other player(s) just gets subsequent ones... (eg. when one player gets B3, the other invariably gets B4; and second pair is again sequential (of separate sequence), like B7/B8).

Is that just my impression due to small number of games played, or is hub randomness indeed restricted?

[Kayvon]

Yes, absolutely random.

I just pulled up the source code to be sure. Humans are excellent at finding patterns, even when none exist. Check out some of the threads for games with dice sometime. I even saw a thread where a guy swore that premium users get better random values in games. (This is silly -- the BGA engine provides random values to the game's code without knowing how or by whom they'll be used.)

[gabrielcohn]

I've played a lot on BGA and haven't noticed that pattern. (That said, there are only 12 hubs on BGA. There are 24 in the physical game. The missing 12 are some of my favorites...)

[Zero_1627]

thank You very much - both for answer and for checking.

I am well aware of patterns appearing where none exist... but feel much better wirh check rather than lingering doubts.

And yes, with 12 hubs available a third of them is selected even in 2-player game - so _some_ pattern is almost bound to appear in a given game

[Kayvon]

I'm happy to check. I'm glad we're on the same page.

I just finished a couple of games of Backgammon where my opponents threw an amazing number of doubles. It's easy to think that randomness is, well, skewed!