1
$\begingroup$

How many bridge hands contain exactly three aces or exactly seven diamonds, or both?

I'm guessing that this problem is:

$$|A \cup B| = |A| + |B| - |A \cap B|$$

So I start off by calculating $|A|$, or the combinations of exactly $3$ aces, then I pick the rest of the bridge hand:

$$|A| = {}_4C_3 * {}_{48}C_{10}$$

Then I calculate $|B|$, or the combinations of exactly 7 diamonds, then I pick the rest of the bridge hand:

$$|B| = {}_{13}C_7 * {}_{39}C_{6}$$

I then have to calculate $|A \cap B|$, which is where I'm lost. I'm not sure how to do this. I had a few guesses.

The first involves picking $3$ of the $4$ aces, then assuming one of the aces chosen was a diamond, picking 6 of the 12 remaining diamonds, then the rest of the cards:

$$|A \cap B| = {}_{4}C_3 * {}_{12}C_{6} * {}_{36}C_{4}$$

The second involves picking $3$ of the $4$ aces, then assuming one of the aces chosen was NOT a diamond, picking $7$ of the $12$ remaining diamonds, then the rest of the cards:

$$|A \cap B| = {}_{4}C_3 * {}_{12}C_{7} * {}_{36}C_{3}$$

I thought that maybe I'd have to add both of these cases to get $|A \cap B|$, but this is not giving me the correct answer when inserting these values into:

$$|A \cap B| = |A| + |B| - |A \cap B|$$

Any help is greatly appreciated. This problem has been challenging me for a day now.

$\endgroup$

1 Answer 1

1
$\begingroup$

$|A∩B|$ exactly 3 aces and exactly 7 daimonds.

I would break this into two cases... hands which hold the ace of diamonds, and hands that don't, and then add them together.

$1{3\choose 2}{12\choose 6}{36\choose4} + {3\choose 3}{12\choose 7}{36\choose 3}$

$\endgroup$
6
  • $\begingroup$ I'm confused why we wouldn't use the full 4 aces in the selections, it looks like you are only using 3 of the aces when choosing. $\endgroup$ Sep 20, 2017 at 21:44
  • $\begingroup$ In both of your examples, if you add up the 3+12+35, you get 50. Shouldn't they add up to 52? $\endgroup$ Sep 20, 2017 at 22:18
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Yes and no... yes, I had a mistake, but no they should sum to 51, because we are specifically accounting for the Ace of Diamonds, and there are only 51 more cards to allocate. $\endgroup$
    – Doug M
    Sep 20, 2017 at 22:28
  • $\begingroup$ Couldn't they sum to 52 if your initial term was ${1\choose 0}$? $\endgroup$ Sep 21, 2017 at 2:35
  • $\begingroup$ That would be a fair way of looking at it. $\endgroup$
    – Doug M
    Sep 21, 2017 at 2:39

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .