Friday, May 25, 2018

mathematics - A game with 52 cards


Alice and Bob play the following game with two (identical) standard decks of $52$ cards.



  • First Alice secretly arranges one deck of $52$ cards in a long row on the table. All cards are face-down, and Bob has no knowledge of the positions of any of the cards.

  • Then the game goes through several rounds. In every round, Bob first pays $1$ Euro to Alice. Then Bob arranges the second deck of cards in a long row on the table, parallel to Alice's row and with all the cards face-up. Then Alice tells Bob all the face-up cards in his row that agree with the corresponding face-down cards in her row. Then the next round starts.

  • The game ends, as soon as Bob knows the positions of all the face-down cards in Alice's row. Bob then receives $x$ Euros from Alice.




Question: What is the smallest value of $x$, for which Bob can still avoid (with absolute certainty) to lose any money?





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