Thirty-sided versus twenty-sided die with one reroll
Question
Alice rolls a fair -sided die and Bob a fair -sided die, and the higher number wins, with ties going to Bob. Without seeing Alice's result, Bob may choose to roll his die a second time, in which case the new roll replaces the old one. If Bob plays optimally, what is the probability that Alice wins?
Short answer
. Keeping a value wins for Bob with probability , while a reroll wins with probability , so he rerolls on –. His win chance is , leaving Alice .
Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Counting and Combinatorics
- Expectation, Mean, and Variance
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
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