Beach Day by Rodger Bliss
December 2023
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Card Shark

Let’s say you have two ordinary decks of playing cards, minus the jokers. So, you have a deck of 52 cards and another deck of 52 cards. You take them and you shuffle them up–mix them all up as best you can, one hundred four cards.

And then you divide them into two equal piles. So, you’ve got a pile of 52 on one side of the table, and a pile of 52 on the other side of the table. You have pile A and pile 2.

What are the chances that the number of red cards in pile A equals the number of black cards in pile 2? That’s part one of the question. And then part two of the question: how many cards would you have to look at to be certain of your answer?

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2 guesses to Card Shark


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  • Mandy

    100%

    1 pile – so 52 cards.

    The reason is because you will have an exact amount of black and red cards, in order for the decks to be even, they would have the exact same amount of cards and where one could have more black, the other will automatically have the equivlant in red.

  • Your reasoning is correct, Mandy.

    Regardless of how they are mixed, the red cards in Pile A will equal the black cards in Pile 2.

    So answer number one is correct, 100%, and the correct answer to part two: None!

    You are today’s winner.