ShmoopTube

00:03

Here's a shmoopy question for you...

00:06

Pat is trying to become the first ever blind man to win a World Series of Poker bracelet.

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Of course, he can't see the cards, so he just has to go all-in every hand.

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On the final hand of the tournament, his opponent calls.

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And just for the heck of it, she doesn't look at her cards either.

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The dealer turns up one of Pat's hole cards to reveal a queen.

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Assuming the dealer is using a standard deck of 52 playing cards...

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...what is the probability that Pat's second card is also a queen?

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Here are the potential answers...

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The second card will depend on what the first card was, which was a queen of hearts.

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With that card out of the picture, the deck has 51 cards left.

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This is the sample space.

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Because Pat is hoping for another queen,

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even though one has already been eliminated from the deck...

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...the number of ways for the event...drawing a queen... to occur is three...

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since there are only three queens left. Therefore, the probability is 3/51, or 1/17.

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Answer B.

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And bingo... a second queen it is.

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Unfortunately, his opponent had picked up aces, and they held.

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Pat wondered if maybe he shouldn't have gone all-in that last hand, but...

01:19

...eh, hindsight is 20/20.

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