Knockout bracket where the two best teams collide last
Question
A single-elimination tournament has teams placed into the bracket uniformly at random. The stronger team always wins each match. What is the probability that the two strongest teams play each other in the final?
Short answer
. They meet in the final exactly when they start in opposite halves of the bracket. Given the best team's slot, of the other slots lie in the opposite half.
Adapted from Joshi, Denson & Downes, Quant Job Interview Questions and Answers, Q3.19, p.82; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Counting and Combinatorics
- Sample Spaces, Events, and the Probability Axioms
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
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