70.

19 The 'Alias Smith and Jones' Poker Problem Author(s): Nick MacKinnon Source: The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 70, No. 452 (Jun., 1986), pp. 136-137 Published by: The Mathematical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3615777 . Accessed: 22/12/2013 17:39
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136

THE MATHEMATICALGAZE' I E

70.19 The 'Alias Smith and Jones' poker problem One week, a characterin the spoof western series 'Alias Smith and Jones' arrangedthe following bet. He was to be dealt 25 playing cards and he had to arrangethem into 5 'pat' hands. In poker a 'pat' hand is one that you do not change and it consists of any one of the following: a full house (e.g. J J J 2 2) a straight (e.g. 3 4 5 6 7, any suits) a flush (all cards same suit) four of a kind (e.g. 3 3 3 3 J). For example, if the deal is as on the left below, then it can be arranged into the pat hands on the right 4 234689J 232345678A 03 4678 Q *2 5 7 A A 2 3 4 8 J (flush) 2 3 6 7 A (flush) 04678Q(flush) 3 3 0 4Z) 54 (straight) 24

5 Z?64 74 82? 9A (straight) Now, believe it or not, I dealt those 25 at random. In fact the characterin the series claimedthat it worked nine times out of ten. Perhapsyou and your classes might like to tackle the question of calculatingthe probabilitythat 25 cards do form 5 pat hands. That seems like a very difficult question, so perhapsthe followingproblems might help you get warmedup. (1) Arrangethe following cards into 5 pat hands: 2 56 89 JKA 558 10 A 25 9 10JKA 4679QKA (2) Show that with the 25 cards at the beginningof this articlewith 24 replacedby K4 you cannot make 5 pat hands. (3a) Find the probabilitythat 25 cards can be arrangedinto 5 straights. (3b) Find the probabilitythat 25 cards can be arrangedinto 5 flushes. (3c) Find the probabilitythat 25 cards can be arrangedin 5 straights or flushes.

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NOTES

137

(4) Even if you start with 26 cards (and are allowed to throw one away) there are still some deals where Jones would fail. Find such a deal. (5) I have shown that given 37 cards (being allowed to throw 12 away) you can always get 5 pat hands. I am not proud of this upperbound, as I suspect that 27 cards suffice. Establish upper bounds of your own. (6) Devise programs for arranging25 cards into pat hands (and hence for findingthe probabilityof success?). I know that this is quite a meaty problem but it has plenty of associated questions and I am sure that there is a lot of scope for projects. The editor tells me that he will publish any readable and reasonable success at any relatedproblem.
NICK MACKINNON

Blundell's School, Tiverton,Devon EX16 4DN

70.20 Which is bigger-e" or ie? The values of ex and 7e are certainly close enough that the answer to the question "which is bigger?"is not self-evident.When I was first asked it (to be done without using a computer, calculator or mathematical tables, of course) it took me many hours of hard labour to derive an answer. There is a fairly simple way to get there, however, by considering the more generalquestion "whichis bigger-ex or xe?" for an unknownx.
Let y = eX/xe.

Ifx=l

then ex > 1,xe = 1, so y > 1

If x = ethen y = 1. If x = 10 then ex > 21 = 1024, xe < 103= 1000, so y > 1. The function is continuous, so it must have a minimumbetween x = 1 and x=10.
Differentiating yxe = ex, we get dy

dx

xe + yexe-l = ex

and, substitutingfor y,
dy ex+1
xe +

dx

= ex.

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