title: ArrayList of ArrayList - initialization of ArrayList<String> and shuffling
body: <p>I am writing a board game, and I defined my own linked Node class(to implement the order of positions).</p>
  
  <p>There are 17 positions, and among them are three distinct special positions.</p>
  
  <p>I want to implement this positions with ArrayList with "BLACK"s and "WHITE"s.</p>
  
  <p>Since where the special positions are will be decided randomly for every game, I am considering using </p>
  
  <pre><code>private ArrayList&lt;ArrayList&lt;String&gt;&gt; _al = new ArrayList&lt;ArrayList&lt;String&gt;&gt;(18);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>so that I could shuffle the special positions</p>
  
  <pre><code>Collections.shuffle(_al);
  HNode&lt;ArrayList&lt;String&gt; _l1 = new HNode&lt;ArrayList&lt;String&gt;&gt;(_al.get(0), null, _l2);
  HNode&lt;ArrayList&lt;String&gt; _l2 = new HNode&lt;ArrayList&lt;String&gt;&gt;(_al.get(1), _l1, _l3);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and so on. (HNode's constructor's parameters are (data, prev, next))</p>
  
  <p>My questions are, </p>
  
  <p>Would the following line automatically create 18 ArrayLists of String objects?
  Or should I (and could I) create them first and add them to _al?</p>
  
  <pre><code>private ArrayList&lt;ArrayList&lt;String&gt;&gt; _al = new ArrayList&lt;ArrayList&lt;String&gt;&gt;(18);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Thank you.</p>