Comments on: AN. More Sucker Bets

By: gpeace

gpeace — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:03:50 +0000

A second solution for the three piles is:
1: A 5 9
2: 2 6 7
3: 3 4 8

By: strauss

strauss — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:42:34 +0000

You are correct! You, know, it ain’t always easy to keep things straight when we’re taping. I can only hope that the fact we’re not always completely on the ball is part of our charm.

As another listener wrote:

Pile x beats Pile ((x +1) mod 3) + 1, five out of nine times.

So the second player should take from the pile before, below, or the the left of the first player.

Didn’t you say it the other way around?

Thanks for the show. I wouldn’t have memorized the trick if you had gotten it exactly right.

By: jeffisom

jeffisom — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:46:26 +0000

I discovered your podcast on iTunes last week and have really enjoyed going through the past episodes and catching up. I do have a question about this one.

The 3 piles that you gave were as follows:
1: A 6 8
2: 3 5 7
3: 2 4 9

So when I pick from the first pile and you pick from the second pile here are the possible outcomes:
A 3 – You Win
A 5 – You Win
A 7 – You Win
6 3
6 5
6 7 – You Win
8 3
8 5
8 7

So you win only 4 out of 9 times

When I pick from the second pile and you pick from the third pile here are the possible outcomes:
3 2
3 4 – You Win
3 9 – You Win
5 2
5 4
5 9 – You Win
7 2
7 4
7 9 – You Win

So you win only 4 out of 9 times again

When I pick from the third pile and you pick from the first pile here are the possible outcomes:
2 A
2 6 – You Win
2 8 – You Win
4 A
4 6 – You Win
4 8 – You Win
9 A
9 6
9 8

So you win only 4 out of 9 times again

So it seems that the piles should have been in the opposite order
1: 2 4 9
2: 3 5 7
3: A 6 8

Am I missing something?

Thanks!