Free throws where success rate copies past accuracy
Question
A player makes his first free throw and misses his second. From the third attempt on, the chance of making each shot equals the fraction of his previous attempts that he made. How many of his first attempts does he make, on average?
Short answer
. This is a Pólya urn starting with one make and one miss. The expected success fraction is a martingale: if , then . So after 100 attempts he averages 50 makes.
Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.
See the hint and the full worked solution in the question bank (free account).
Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Expectation, Mean, and Variance
- Conditional Expectation and Variance Revisited
- Sample Spaces, Events, and the Probability Axioms
Start with a free lesson: Expectation, Variance and Covariance is part of a free topic. Create a free account, no card needed, to read it in full with worked solutions.
Read it free