How Do You Solve Basic Probability Problems Involving A Deck Of Cards?
Article 3 in a series of stand-alone articles on basic probability. A common topic in introductory probability is solving problems involving a deck of standard playing cards. This article shows you the steps for solving the most common types of basic questions on this subject. For all problems of this type, there are some important points that apply. First of all, the problem will probably refer to a standard deck of playing cards. This means that there are no tricks involved. The problem assumes a regular deck of cards, not “stacked,” shuffled randomly, with cards drawn randomly. Some students claim that questions of this nature are unfair, especially if they grew up in a culture that doesn’t play games using what we call a standard deck of cards. While this may be the case, it is not hard to learn the facts about a deck of cards that you are expected to know. A standard deck of cards contains 52 different cards. It contains cards of 13 different ranks, ranging from Ace (essentially 1
