Draws needed to clear a deck of ten pairs
Question
A deck has cards: two copies of each value to . Each turn you draw two cards at random from what is left. If they show the same value they are discarded for good; otherwise both go back. The game ends when the deck is empty. What is the expected number of turns?
Short answer
. With pairs left, a turn removes a pair with probability (the second card must match the first), so that stage lasts turns on average. Summing over gives .
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Expectation, Mean, and Variance
- Conditional Expectation and Variance Revisited
- Continuous Random Variables and Probability Density Functions
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