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Card Deck: Complete a set, before... (Posted on 2021-05-25) Difficulty: 4 of 5
A deck of cards is shuffled. You turn over the cards one by one.

1. What is the probability that at least one of each of the numbered denominations (1 - 10) is turned over before any of the twelve face cards is turned over?

2. What is the probability that at least one of each of the Jack, Queen and King is turned over before any numbered denomination (1 - 10) is turned over?

Before doing the calculation, which probability do you think is higher, and why? ... or are they the same?

For an extra challenge: Answer the same questions using a special 61-card deck consisting of 1 Ace, 2 Deuces, 3 Treys, through 10 tens, and 4 Jacks, 1 Queen and 1 King.

  Submitted by Charlie    
Rating: 4.0000 (1 votes)
Solution: (Hide)
This is solved by inclusion/exclusion. The probability that an example of each denomination occurs before any face card starts out by adding the sum of all the individual probabilities of a given denomination coming before any face card; from this is subtracted all the pairwise probabilities of either denomination A or denomination B before all the face cards. It goes on like this for triples, etc., alternately adding and subtracting from the total probability.

Part 1.

group prob of    how      overall
size   each     many      contribution
 1     1/4        10       5/2
 2     2/5        45      -18
 3     1/2       120       60
 4     4/7       210      -120
 5     5/8       252       315/2
 6     2/3       210      -140
 7     7/10      120       84
 8     8/11       45      -360/11
 9     3/4        10       15/2
10     10/13       1      -10/13

                    total  1/286

Part 2.

group prob of    how      overall
size   each     many      contribution
 1    1/11        3          3/11
 2    1/6         3         -1/2
 3    3/13        1          3/13

                    total   1/286

The probabilities are the same.

Verified by simulation:

succ=0;
for trial=1:1000000
   deck=randperm(52);
   had=zeros(1,10); hadCt=0;
   for i=1:52
      v=ceil(deck(i)/4);
      if v>10, break, end
      if had(v)==0
         had(v)=1;
         hadCt=hadCt+1;
      end
   end
   if hadCt==10
     succ=succ+1;
   end
end
disp([succ/1000000 1000000/succ])


succ=0;
for trial=1:1000000
   deck=randperm(52);
   had=zeros(1,3); hadCt=0;
   for i=1:52
      v=ceil(deck(i)/4);
      if v<11, break, end
      if had(v-10)==0
         had(v-10)=1;
         hadCt=hadCt+1;
      end
   end
   if hadCt==3
     succ=succ+1;
   end
end
disp([succ/1000000 1000000/succ])

A recognition of the fact that the individual, pairwise, etc. probabilities can all be reduced by dividing the numerator and denominator by 4 indicates the results are the same as if there were only one card of each denomination. That realization makes the problem equivalent to that of all the face cards coming at the end (or beginning) of the shuffling of a 13-card deck with one of each denomination. That probability is 1/C(13,3) = 1/286.

For the Extra Challenge:

X1:

The numerators and denominators get too large to show as rational numbers, and the probabilities are different for the differing denominations and combinations of denominations. So only the total of the contributions of each level (size of combinations) is shown.

size of              total of
each subset        contributions

 1               4.41562604062604
 2              -28.1965609286393
 3                86.646713303523
 4              -163.633524574637
 5               205.890246287792
 6              -177.206336737997
 7               103.658920727275
 8              -39.5678734065306
 9               8.91600955226612
10             -0.901639344262295

The total probability is 0.0215809194152671 or 1 in 46.3372287694363.

X2:

The fractions here are amenable to showing as rational numbers:


                                           contribution
1  4/59 + 1/56 + 1/56 = 171/1652            171/1652
2  1/12 + 1/12 + 2/57 = 23/114             - 23/114
3  6/61                                       6/61

                                  total    673/5744004  ~=  0.000117165656569877
                                  or 1 in 8534.92421991085

The total is the same as the sum of Jer's terms in the first comment.

Simulations are via

deck2=[1 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 12 13];

tot=0;
succ=0;
for trial=1:1000000
   deck=randperm(61);
   had=zeros(1,10); hadCt=0;
   for i=1:61
      v=deck2(deck(i));
      if v>10, break, end
      if had(v)==0
         had(v)=1;
         hadCt=hadCt+1;
      end
   end
   if hadCt==10
     succ=succ+1;
   end
end
disp([succ/1000000 1000000/succ])


succ=0;
for trial=1:1000000
   deck=randperm(61);
   had=zeros(1,3); hadCt=0;
   for i=1:61
      v=deck2(deck(i));
      if v<11, break, end
      if had(v-10)==0
         had(v-10)=1;
         hadCt=hadCt+1;
      end
   end
   if hadCt==3
     succ=succ+1;
   end
end
disp([succ/1000000 1000000/succ])
With respective results of:

0.021826 45.8169156052415
0.000112 8928.57142857143

Comments: ( You must be logged in to post comments.)
  Subject Author Date
re(2): Solution to extra challenge #2Jer2021-05-27 07:46:26
re: Solution to extra challenge #2Charlie2021-05-26 15:24:47
Some ThoughtsSolution to extra challenge #2Jer2021-05-26 11:21:18
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