Guessing cards with complete feedback

DOI10.1016/J.AAM.2023.102569MaRDI QIDQ6170338zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Andrea Ottolini, Stefan Steinerberger

Publication date 12 July 2023

Published in Advances in Applied Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.09094

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Stopping times; optimal stopping problems; gambling theory (60G40) Sequential statistical methods (62L99)

Abstract: We consider the following game that has been used as a way of testing claims of extrasensory perception (ESP). One is given a deck of $mn$ cards comprised of $n$ distinct types each of which appears exactly $m$ times: this deck is shuffled and then cards are discarded from the deck one at a time from top to bottom. At each step, a player (whose psychic powers are being tested) tries to guess the type of the card currently on top, which is then revealed to the player before being discarded. We study the expected number $S_{n,m}$ of correct predictions a player can make: one could always guess the exact same type of card which shows that one can achieve $S_{n,m}>m$. We prove that the optimal (non-psychic) strategy is just slightly better than that and find the first order correction when $n,m$ grows at suitable rates. This is very different from the case where $m$ is fixed and $n$ is large (He & Ottolini) and similar to the case of fixed $n$ and $m$ is large (Graham & Diaconis). The case $m=n$ answers a question of Diaconis.

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Cited in

(2)

• On card guessing games: limit law for no feedback one-time riffle shuffle
• On card guessing games: limit law for one-time riffle shuffle

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