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A Stats question?
Suppose you were playing a dice game where the highest roll wins. Which method would give you a better chance:
Method A: Roll just one die, then add one to that roll.
Method B: Roll two dice, then use the higher roll of the two.
4 Answers
- PuzzlingLv 75 years agoFavorite Answer
Method A:
The outcomes are 2 through 7 with equal probability:
X | P(X)
2 | 1/6
3 | 1/6
4 | 1/6
5 | 1/6
6 | 1/6
7 | 1/6
E(X) = (2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7) / 6 = 27/6 = 9/2 = 4.5
Method B:
36 outcomes:
\ 1 2 3 4 5 6
..----------------
1| 1 2 3 4 5 6
2| 2 2 3 4 5 6
3| 3 3 3 4 5 6
4| 4 4 4 4 5 6
5| 5 5 5 5 5 6
6| 6 6 6 6 6 6
X | P(X)
1 | 1/36
2 | 3/36
3 | 5/36
4 | 7/36
5 | 9/36
6 | 11/36
E(X) = (1*1 + 2*3 + 3*5 + 4*7 + 5*9 + 6*11)/36
E(X) = 161/36
E(X) = 4.47222222222
Answer:
Though just slightly better, I'd choose method A with an expected outcome of 4.5 compared to 4.472222..
- Divide By ZeroLv 75 years ago
A's avg score = 4.5
B's avg score = 6*P(6) + 5*P(5) + ...
P(6) = 1 - (5/6)^2
P(5) = 2(1/6)(4/6) + (1/6)^2
P(4) = 2(1/6)(3/6) + (1/6)^2
...
B's avg score = 4.472
So if the averages are a true indicator, A will have the slightly higher chance of winning. But let's see.
P(A > B) = P(A=7) + P(A=6 & B<6) + ... = 1/6 * [1 + (5/6)^2 + (4/6)^2 + ... + (1/6)^2] = 91/216
P(A = B) = P(both 6) + ... + P(both 2) = 1/6 * [P(B=6) + ... + P(B=2)] = 35/216
P(A < B) = 1 - P(A>B) - P(A=B) = 90/216
91 > 90 so A is the better method.
If the players roll until there is no tie, then A will win 91/181 = 50.276% of the time.
- Anonymous5 years ago
The number of possible outcomes is small enough to analyze in a spreadsheet by listing them all, so that's what I did.
Method A gives you an average of 4.5. That's easy to see since the expectation for rolling one die is 3.5, and adding 1 gives you 4.5.
Method B gives you an average of 4.5 - 1/36 = 4.472222. That's a little more difficult to calculate theoretically. I haven't really thought about how to do that. I just listed all 36 rolls, took the larger value, and averaged it to get the result, so since it looked at the entire sample space, I know it's correct. Perhaps someone can contribute a theoretical method for calculating that.
So Method A gives you a slightly higher average score.
I also looked at a head-to-head match up. If two people play, and one uses Method A and the other uses Method B, then there are 216 possible outcomes (6 for A, 36 for B, 6x36=216 for both), and player A:
wins 91 out of 216
ties 35 out of 216
loses 90 out of 216
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