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PUBLIC TALK
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Persi Diaconis| Stanford Univ. (USA) - Home Page
The mathematics of solitaire
Millions of people play solitaire everyday-on phones, computers and with actual cards. It is one of the embarrassments of
probability that we don't know the odds of winning! In Las Vegas you can 'buy a deck' for $52 and get $5 for each card you play up.
Is this a fair game? How do the rules affect things? How can we play better? I will review what we know and introduce a playable
'toy' solitaire which permits analysis-patience sorting.
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