Awesome Game ShowFollow

... ... ...!
The other thing you know for sure is that you had a 1/3 chance of being correct the first time. Thus a 2/3 chance of being wrong.

But the one you chose has a higher probability of being a goat then a car, no?

Lol, yes.. but that doesn't matter since the other one is going to be shown to you no matter what.

The door you pick, your pre-pick, has no bearing on.. well.. anything. A goat door is still going to be shown to you, leaving you one goat and one car door. There's absolutely no way to change the situation given the simplistic nature of the game.

It's 50-50.

Edited, Apr 1st 2008 4:37pm by Kaain

This was my debate with Ugly.

The fact is you never, ever have a 50/50 chance in this exercise.

By saying that you have a 50/50 chance means that if you repeatedly pick the same option over multiple instances of the game that you'd be right 50% percent of the time.

This is not true in this game. If you repeatedly stuck to your guns and never switched then you'd only win 1/3 of the time. If you repeatedly stuck to your guns and always swapped you'd win 2/3 of the time. Where does this 50/50 probability come from?

You can only claim to have a 50/50 chance if the car is randomly between two curtains. But the car is *not* randomly between two curtains. This is key. Prior to the host eliminating a curtain, there was 2/3 possibility that the car was behind one of other two curtains. When the host eliminates one of the curtains, the odds do not change. (They would if the host randomly eliminated a curtain, but he always removes a curtain without the car.)

Oh, I know, but I wanted to argue the ******** side on this one.

So, based on what you guys are sayin', you should change your original pick every single time.. no matter what.

This is one Shitty gameshow.

I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible, actually. If you want to see overcomplications, check the Wikipedia page for this problem :p

I'll make one more attempt to explain this problem.

Let's say, that instead of a goat, behind 2 of the doors is nothing. Then, you could think of the problem like this: You pick one of the doors. Once you've done this, the host tells you that you can either stick with that, or you can take what's inside the other 2 doors. Since 2 of the 3 doors are empty anyway, it really makes no difference whether he opens one and then suggests switching or just straight out offers you 2 doors instead of one. Logic would clearly suggest that if you pick to get what's inside 2 doors instead of getting what's inside 1 door, you have twice the chance of winning.

The situation Kaain is suggesting is one where there are only 2 doors to begin with, or one where he has forgotten which of the doors he originally picked. Sure, you could flip a coin after one door is opened, but that would just reduce your winning chances.

Also, if I pull the correct card way more often by swappin' my choice, I'm still right.

I'll be writin' a nasty letter to the gods of probability law that'll fix things right up in my favor.

So, suck it.

I think there's some miscommunication here, and that's probably on my part. Yes, I completely agree.

I was trying to point out the problem I had with people saying "there are 2 doors and one of them has the car, the other doesn't". This is not the problem, since in this version of the problem it's as if you "forgot" which of the 3 you at first picked.

In other words, to get the 50/50 you are no longer answering the problem, which asks "Should you change or not?", but you are just flipping a coin after having forgotten which door you originally picked. This is no longer the problem this "game show" is about at all.

I have no idea what that copypasta maths sh*t meant

Edited, Apr 1st 2008 6:06pm by SWM

Kaiin, If you were some sort or wizard who could turn goats into cars, you would most definitely win.

SWM - Don't copypasta when you don't know what it means. Plus its exactly the same thing we've been posting for a while now :P.

Im going to go sit in the naughty corner for a while.