Here’s an interesting math puzzle of the Monty Hall genre. It actually isn’t “pointless” — Expert bridge players need to know the answer. (And if you already know the answer, please let non-bridge players tackle it first.)
The puzzle arises in the game of contract bridge, but non-players should be able to understand the setup. You and your partner (the dummy) have nine hearts missing only the Queen, Jack, Trey and Deuce. You cash the Ace; LHO plays the Trey, RHO the Jack. You lead toward dummy’s King, LHO following with the Deuce. Should you play for the Queen to be with LHO or RHO? (Your opponents are indifferent in their plays of Trey vs Deuce, or Queen vs. Jack. However, as the play has proceeded they would not play a picture card when a small card still available.)
There are only two possibilities that remain for the original holdings:
LHO: 3 2 RHO: Q J
LHO: Q 3 2 RHO: J
The cards were shuffled randomly to begin with and, with nothing else to go on, the a priori chances for these two cases are about the same. (1st case is slightly more likely than 2nd.)
What is the percentage play now?
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I’m bumping the thread mainly to bump the suggestion of a Name that Code thread similar to Name that Tune. With a large number of expert programmers posting at SDMB, it might be fun! A player would post a code fragment, another would Name that Code and post his own. Assign Roman numbers to the fragments so that several could be under contest simultaneously. The code fragment could be in any language, could come from real code or be manufactured for the purpose of the game. Responder would say something salient about the code — what it does or where it appears.
Does such a thread belong in IMHO, or in Thread Games? In any event, I won’t start it — too many of my threads have gone unbumped. I will try to contribute if someone else starts the thread.