How to calculate probability of being dealt certain cards?
As others have noted, you can’t just have a probability, you can only have a probability for a well-defined event (which can itself be a combination of other well-defined events). To get at a specific sub-part, you write: This is where my retard brain ceases to work. How do I know the odds of the 3rd card, given that the 2nd card may or may not be the same as the 1st card? You’d do this with a probability tree. The contingency you notice there, that the odds in the third draw depend on what has gone before, is inescapable. You’d start with an initial node, out of which come 13 branches, one for each value. The probability of each branch is 1/13. Then, at the end of the topmost branch, you’d draw another 13 branches representing the second draw. Except this time, the probability of another 1 is 3/51, and the probability of all the others is 4/51. Then you’d do this again for each of the other twelve first-stage branches. Then you’d go to the new topmost branch, that corresponds to a 1 a
