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The Last Diamond (Posted on 2004-05-25) Difficulty: 3 of 5
A standard, thoroughly shuffled 52-card deck is dealt one at a time to 5 players (players 1 - 5) in standard fashion, until the deck is exhausted.

Using non-brute force methods, show which player is most likely to be dealt the last Diamond in the deck.

  Submitted by Brian Smith    
Rating: 2.8000 (5 votes)
Solution: (Hide)
This is really the same as dealing from the *bottom* of the deck, starting with player 2, going to player 1, then 5,4,3,2,1,5,4,3,... Therefore, since player 2 gets the first shot at a diamond, he has the best chance of receiving the first diamond. So, play this movie backwards, once again dealing from the top of the deck, and player 2 has the best chance of receiving the last diamond.

Comments: ( You must be logged in to post comments.)
  Subject Author Date
AnswerK Sengupta2009-01-09 03:54:50
if a > b and c > d then a+c>b+dvectorboy2004-05-27 11:54:33
SolutionWorking backwardsFederico Kereki2004-05-25 10:45:08
The actual numbers (spoiler present)Charlie2004-05-25 08:59:04
SolutionsolutionCharlie2004-05-25 08:39:17
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