Random number reuse?

zudensternen

I was under the impression that once you jump in and start playing (Freecell, say), you are playing the same game that many others are; and that its game number is part of a "thread" of numbers, following from a random or pseudo-random seed, that everyone else who is playing at the same time is engaged in. Most of the time the people you see on the board played a few minutes to a few hours before you. The threads start over on the hour with another random seed.

The attachment shows a game I just finished on June 30, and most everyone in the top 10 had played it on June 4, twenty-six days ago. (Unfortunately I didn't capture the game number.)

There are many game numbers: beeliions and beelions, pacé Carl Sagan. [*]

Don't believe I've ever seen this duplication happen. @jim / @david , do you have any insight into how (im)probable it is that a given game would show up on another random thread so soon? How many unique Freecell games does the site deal out per day?

For a few games after this one I was still seeing June 4 wins on the board. By this game ( https://greenfelt.net/freecell?game=1127864799 ), 5 or 6 down the line, it was all June 30.

[*] "This algorithm can deal over 2 billion distinct numbered deals before the algorithm repeats." — http://solitairelaboratory.com/fcfaq.html