Picking the safest full house before a random deal
Question
From a standard deck you may choose any five cards that form a full house (three of one rank plus two of another). Your opponent then gets five random cards from the remaining , and standard poker rankings apply. Card values are – at face value and J, Q, K, A ; a full house's value is the sum of its five cards (e.g. is worth ). Consider the full houses, identified by their ranks only, that maximise your probability of winning. What is the sum of their values?
Short answer
. Three aces mean no opponent full house can win, leaving only quads (equally likely whatever pair you hold) and straight flushes. Holding aces already blocks the ace-low and ace-high straight flushes in three suits, so the pair should be a rank in the most remaining straight flushes, namely or (a brute-force count confirms these tie). The hands through are worth .
Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.
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