|
|
Larry Barnowsky Inner circle Cooperstown, NY where bats are made from 4770 Posts |
What are the odds that in a shuffled deck you'll find at least one sequential group of 4 or more cards that are all black or all red?
So, 4 or more blacks together anywhere in the deck or 4 or more reds together anywhere in the deck. The top and bottom cards should not be considered to be next to one another. Empircally it seems it is very common to have runs of four or more in a shuffled deck. I'm curious as to what the exact odds are. Thanks, Larry |
S2000magician Inner circle Yorba Linda, CA 3465 Posts |
That's a tough one. The difficulty in counting the number of ways it can happen is in making sure that you don't accidentally count the same arrangement more than once.
I'll ponder it over the weekend and see if I can come up with a number. |
TomasB Inner circle Sweden 1144 Posts |
The incredible Stan Alger solved a similar (I think easier but still extremely hard) problem at
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......orum=101 The problem you pose is hard do calculate but extremely easy to simulate, which is just not as fun as solving it for real. /Tomas |
S2000magician Inner circle Yorba Linda, CA 3465 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-06-07 02:39, TomasB wrote: I'd intended to write a short program to simulate it, to get a rough idea of the probability. You're right on both points: easy to do, not very satisfying. Posted: Jun 7, 2008 5:19pm -------------------------------- I just ran a simulation of 200,000 deals. Any guesses on the probability? |
Larry Barnowsky Inner circle Cooperstown, NY where bats are made from 4770 Posts |
My guess is about 90%
|
S2000magician Inner circle Yorba Linda, CA 3465 Posts |
Pretty close! 97.2%
So, what are you going to do with this? |
Larry Barnowsky Inner circle Cooperstown, NY where bats are made from 4770 Posts |
Thanks Bill for running the simulation.
I was looking at patterns of cards that occur when Gilbreath pairs are riffle shuffled together. Getting four colors in a row following a riffle shuffle, where the the cards shuffled are red-black Gilbreath pairs is uncommon, whereas getting any four in a row with a random shuffled deck is very likely (97.2% by your calc.). In addition, you will never get 5 in a row if you riffle shuffle Gilbreath pairs. I had an idea for a card effect which is still evolving using some of these concepts. Larry |
S2000magician Inner circle Yorba Linda, CA 3465 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-06-07 20:29, Larry Barnowsky wrote: My pleasure. As you brought up five-in-a-row, that happens 77.2% of the time for a regular shuffle. Six-in-a-row: 46.5% of the time. Seven-in-a-row: 23.3% of the time. . . . Twenty-seven-in-a-row: seldom. ;) |
airship Inner circle In my day, I have driven 1594 Posts |
Even less-frequent results might be acceptable as bar bets. 6-to-1 on seven in a row would pay a little better than even. 3-to-1 on six in a row is even better.
'The central secret of conjuring is a manipulation of interest.' - Henry Hay
|
S2000magician Inner circle Yorba Linda, CA 3465 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-06-09 15:19, airship wrote: Legend has it that the Duke of Yarborough used to offer 1,000:1 odds that a whist player wouldn't get a hand with no honors; i.e., no 10, J, Q, K, or A. The actual odds against such a hand are 9,860,459:5,394, or slightly over 1,827:1, so the duke was making a very good wager. Such a hand has come to be known as a Yarborough. |
LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
Quote:
On 2008-06-10 00:14, S2000magician wrote: I keep checking my bridge hands for one of each value, ace down to deuce. I've missed by one card a number of times (i.e. 12 different values and a pair). Sometimes I get OCD-ly worried that I've already had the hand and forgotten to check.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
S2000magician Inner circle Yorba Linda, CA 3465 Posts |
Quote:
On 2009-01-30 17:55, LobowolfXXX wrote: The odds against such a hand are slightly over 9,462:1. |
WilburrUK Veteran user 389 Posts |
Ok, I know it's an old question, that's already been answered by a simulation, but I thought I'd have a stab at doing it by maths.
I decided to have a go at this after reading Stan Alger's rather lovely proof for the similar problem with coin tosses. Here's how I'll approach it. Assuming we have a deck with just 26 red and 26 black cards (no suits or values) I'll determine how many arrangements there are with no more than 3 like-coloured cards together. But first how many total arrangements are there for the deck: For a 52 card deck there are 52! arrangements, but for each of those the red cards can be arranged 26! ways and the blacks can be arranged 26! ways, so the total number of unique arrangements is 52!/(26! x 26!) This turns out to be 495,918,532,948,104 (495 trillion) But how many contain no group of 4 cards of the same colour. Imagine we split the deck into black and red piles (26 cards each), and riffle shuffle them together. only ever dropping 1,2 or 3 cards from each hand, how many ways can we do that? First consider just the red half. what must do first is get the total number of unique arrangements of these groups (of 1,2 or 3 cards) that add up to 26 cards. But first, let's try with less cards: For just one red card, clearly there's only one such arrangement - dropping one group of one card For 2 cards there is one way of dropping 1 group and 1 way of dropping 2 groups for 3 cards there is one wat of dropping 1 group, 2 ways of dropping 2 groups, and 1 way of dropping 3 groups I'll use notation N(c) is the total number of ways of arranging c cards into groups of 3 or less cards each. NN(c,g) is the total number of ways of arranging c cards into g groups of 3 or less cards each. N(1) = 1 {1} N(2) = 2: NN(2,1)=1 {2}, NN(2,2) = 1 {1,1} N(3) = 4: NN(3,1)=1 {3}, NN(3,2) = 2 {1,2} {2,1} NN(3,3)=1 {1,1,1} Obviously NN(4,1) = 0. You can't drop 4 cards in one group of 3 or less cards, but what about the general case NN(c,g) well, the only way to make such an arrangement is either Add a group of 1 card to the arrangement NN(c-1, g-1) Add a group of 2 cards to the arrangement NN(c-2,g-1) add a group of 3 cards to the arrangement NN(x-3,g-1) Therefore the total number of arrangements NN(c,g) = NN(c-1,g-1) + NN(c-2,g-1) + NN(c-3,g-1) If we work this out for all values of c and g up to 26 (pretty simple to do in a spreadsheet program), we get NN(26,1) - NN(26,8) = 0 (no way to do it in 8 or fewer groups of less than 3 NN(26,9) = 9 (8 groups of 3 and one of 2, there are 9 different places the 2 can go) NN(26,10) = 615 NN(26,11) = 9042 NN(26,12) = 58278 NN(26,13) = 212941 NN(26,14) = 502593 NN(26,15) = 827190 NN(26,16) = 996216 NN(26,17) = 905658 NN(26,18) = 633726 NN(26,19) = 344964 NN(26,20) = 146490 NN(26,21) = 48279 NN(26,22) = 12166 NN(26,23) = 2277 NN(26,24) = 300 NN(26,25) = 25 NN(26,26) = 1 (26 groups of 1 card each) Now, in order to make a valid riffle shuffle with these groupings - assuming we start by dropping from the Red packet - we need either: an identical number of black groupings (which will end up with the last group being dropped from the black half), or one less black group than red (which will end with the last group dropping from the red half - which is OK as the original problem stated that "The top and bottom cards should not be considered to be next to one another"). So for each of these NN(26,g) arrangements for red cards, there are NN(26,g)+NN(26,g-1) possible arrangements for the black groups. For example, dropping 9 groups of reds, (dropping red first) there are 9 valid black groupings. So there are 81 ways of shuffling the cards together with only 9 red groups. Adding this into the spreadsheet, we get Rg= 9 : W = 81 Rg=10 : W = 383760 Rg=11 : W = 87318594 Rg=12 : W = 3923274960 Rg=13 : W = 57753645079 Rg=14 : W = 359622379662 Rg=15 : W = 1099983199770 Rg=16 : W = 1816506231696 Rg=17 : W = 1722447403092 Rg=18 : W = 975547664784 Rg=19 : W = 337612817160 Rg=20 : W = 71993096460 Rg=21 : W = 9403252551 Rg=22 : W = 735373870 Rg=23 : W = 32886711 Rg=24 : W = 773100 Rg=25 : W = 8125 Rg=26 : W = 26 (Rg = Number of red groups, W = total ways of shuffling reds and blacks together, starting with a red group). We need to sum all these ways of shuffling, and then double it (to account for dropping a black group first). That gives us a grand total of: 2 x 6455649709481 = 12911299418962 so there are 12911299418962 out of 495918532948104 arrangements of red and black groups that do not have more than 3 cards of any colour together, this comes out at a 2.6035% chance of NOT getting a group of size 4 or more, or 97.396% chance of having such a group. Which thankfully, after all that, is pretty close to S2000Magician's simulation results. Phew ! Thanks for providing me with a Sunday afternoon's brain workout, I wonder how many people will actually care ! Wilburr. |
Larry Barnowsky Inner circle Cooperstown, NY where bats are made from 4770 Posts |
I do. Thanks for your efforts.
Larry |
S2000magician Inner circle Yorba Linda, CA 3465 Posts |
Quote:
On 2009-02-01 11:44, WilburrUK wrote: Good work! |
TomasB Inner circle Sweden 1144 Posts |
Sweet, Wilburr!
I'm not sure if I missed something with "We need to sum all these ways of shuffling, and then double it (to account for dropping a black group first)." I only read this through quickly so I'm sorry if this is a lame observation: I hope you didn't double the part where you had one less group of blacks than reds. If so, dropping a black pile first would make you end up with two red groups together at the end. /Tomas |
WilburrUK Veteran user 389 Posts |
Thomas. I think I kept everything "above board", basically the initial (pre-doubling) number was the number of valid combinations when a red group was dropped first (ie x red groups and x or x-1 black groups), for each of those there is an equivalent (but opposite) combination where a black group was dropped first. ie x black groups and x or x-1 red groups.
The doubling is possible because there are the same number of red and black cards, and so the same "profile" of possible groupings for each. If that weren't the case, you would have to work out seperate numbers for "black group first" and "red groups first" shuffles and add them. I did convince myself several times that I'd done it right, but hey, if anyone can pinpoint any mistakes, I'm more than happy to stand corrected. |
TomasB Inner circle Sweden 1144 Posts |
I didn't think of that doubling would take care of x black groups with x or x-1 red groups also. Sounds totally correct.
Again, great work! /Tomas |
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » Magical equations » » Odds question (0 Likes) |
[ Top of Page ] |
All content & postings Copyright © 2001-2024 Steve Brooks. All Rights Reserved. This page was created in 0.07 seconds requiring 5 database queries. |
The views and comments expressed on The Magic Café are not necessarily those of The Magic Café, Steve Brooks, or Steve Brooks Magic. > Privacy Statement < |