Consider a deck of 10 cards numbered in order from 1 to 10. Pick up the first five cards (1 to 5). Randomly discard one and take the 6. Randomly discard one again and take the 7. Continue until the 10 has just been taken.

a) What is the expected average of the five cards in the final hand?
b) What is the expected value of the smallest card in the final hand?

Recompute parts a) and b) where you still hold 5 cards, but go all the way through a 100 card deck.

(In reply to Some starting thoughts by Leming)

These are correct, but I challenge you to find the exact solution for 100 cards.  It may require a slightly different method.

Posted by Jer on 2007-07-23 20:34:51