What are the odds of winning a two person cut for high card, given a well shuffled 52 card deck. I’d guess even, but I’m no gambler.
Peace,
mangeorge
How are you counting ties? If ties mean redraw until somebody wins, I can’t see any way the probability would be anything but even.
Suit rank, I assume. D, C, H, S, ascending is how I remember it. Agreed upon before playing so you don’t have to shoot anybody.
I learned that from TV.
Or you could rank the suits, and break ties that way. Still even.
Ok, I was just trying to discount ties as a possible outcome. So, as you have it, with a clear winner each cut, it’s 50% chance of winning.
I’m not any stats expert, but I’d place it at 50/50 before the first person drew, but the odds become more concrete after the first card is turned.
Reminds me of a trick a codger taught me back in the day… Take the deck of cards, set it on the table. Put your fist (knuckles down) on the deck, press down very firmly and then twist your wrist to the right. A portion of the deck will “break loose” and follow your twist. This is your “cut”. Grab the stack that twisted and turn it over.
8 times out of 10, your card will be an ace.
Don’t ask me how it worked, not sure if it still does with present day card manufacture, but I cleaned up back in the day.
How does knowing what the other guy drew affect your random draw (your method of cheating listed above notwithstanding)? Does it still affect your random draw if the other guy doesn’t reveal until after you’ve drawn, and if so, how?
It’s simple “high to low” odds. If you have an opening draw of a three, simple odds favor that I’ll draw a higher card because there are so many more higher than three. But if you drew a six or seven, the odds go back to more of a 50/50 proposition.
Of course, this doesn’t take into account the amount of cards you removed from play when you took your cut.
As I said, I hate statistics.
Nor should it, so long as those cards are all unknown.
First person could draw any of 52 cards.
The remaining stack is an assortment from any of 51 cards. Until you look at them, they could be anything. Assuming a ranking of 1 to 52, using values for suites to set the order for ties…
Your odds of picking any card first are 1 in 52. (1 is highest, Ace of Spades, from DHCS ascending) Your card is number X of 52.
Your opponent draws next, and has odds of (X-1) in 51 of picking a higher card, (52-X)in 51 of a lower card.
(I.e. I pick the King of Spades, card number 5. You have 4 in 51 chances of picking an Ace, 47 in 51 chances of picking the King of Clubs or lower…)
If you add up the odds for X=1 to X=52, you can see they average out to 50-50 still. chance of X=1 or X=52 cancel, X=2 or X=51, etc. … X=26 and X=27 cancel - by symmetry odds of winning and losing balance overall for all random picks of X.
Moved to the Game Room.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
In the casinos I’ve played in (usually used for determining who goes first on ties in seven card stud) - it is actually “bridge order” - which is C,D,H,S - the nice thing about “bridge order” - is it is the same as “alphabetical order” - but I guess it sounds cooler to say “bridge order”.
Haven’t played 7CS in that many casinos - so it may vary from place to place.
The odds of cutting the highest card are even. It doesn’t matter who goes first.
The odds of the second player beating the first player once the first card is revealed is an entirely separate problem which depends on the first problem but which does not effect it.
The odds are vanishingly close to 50-50 but the microscopic odds favoring the first card drawn mean that alternating the order of the cut would be a good practice.
Explain. The odds should be perfectly even.
Thank you. This drives me nuts. Going first has no advantage nor disadvantage. I belonged to a local astronomy club that held raffles at the end of each monthly meeting. They would draw for the grand prize first and set it aside to reveal later after the lessor prizes had been awarded. This was so that “everyone has a chance.” It drove me nuts because it makes no difference. Particularly galling was the fact that this was an astronomy club, a scientific discipline, steeped in math and science. Same thing with the NPR Car Talk Puzzler: “our first winner chosen at random” doesn’t mean that they go through all the submissions, filter out the winners and put them into a hat. It’s just first correct answer, period. /rant
Are we lowering ourselves into the “Random is an order” / “In no particular order” debate here?
Yep, I’ll be waiting on this with bated breath.
I’d like to hear what the difference is too.
I’m wondering if pulykamell is assuming that Buffalo Billious’ first-cut trick of pulling an ace 80% of the time is possible (and subsequently doesn’t work with a smaller deck).