Re: [DL] 5 Deck of Cards - PS This will be long folks...

[Allan Seyberth <darious@darious.com>]

>Well by that logic, there should be no change in the odds if there were say 
>8 suits - like if you had two decks.  This does not sit right with me at 
>all.  It seems to be much more likely to draw a pair from two decks of cards 
>(given a pull of 5 cards - bad roll Mr huxter) than from two decks.

Ah - but with two decks of cards, you aren't gaining four new suits, you
are just doubling the number of cards in the suits that already exist.

Which is why the standard for blackjack in Vegas is four decks or six mixed
together in a shoe - unless the casino is having a "special" and is
advertising single deck blackjack.  (Card counting in Blackjack can shift
the odds very close to 50/50 between the casino and player - in single deck
blackjack the odds can shift to roughly 49/51 in favor of the player if
they know how to count the cards).

>Still don't buy it.  Lets be a little more rigerous shall we.  In a regular 
>deck of cards you have but one chance of getting 4 of a kind.  In a deck 
>with 5 suits you have 5 ways of making 4 of a kind.  To offset this increase 
>in odds, you would need 5 times as amny combinations of draws from a 65 card 
>deck than a 52 card deck.

Actually - you have 624 chances at four of a kind in a regular poker deck
with jokers out of 2.5 million possible combinations (5 card pull).  The
odds change to 14664 out of 20 million possible combinations on a 6 card
pull - an increase of over double in the odds of pulling a four of a kind.  
So yes - I would have to agree that pulling four out of five specific cards
in a 68 card deck is much easier then pulling four out of four in a 54 card
deck.
But I would have to hazard a guess that the odds increase is by less then
one percent, given the very small chances in the initial condition.

-------------------
Allan Seyberth
darious@darious.com

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Eeyore:
If it did.  Which I doubt.  Not that it matters.