Originally Posted by
DSchles
Sure I am, a great probability book is on one of the shelves of your impressive library. You guessed it, I am referring to Warren Weaver’s “Lady Luck”. It has a section dedicated to streaks. The formulas are easy to understand and to program into software.
I think you overlooked one important aspect. Lets say coin toss, 5-heads in a row. The pattern must be exactly THHHHHT when you calculate how many 5-head streaks in a number of trials. HTTTTTH for 5-tail streaks. Thats why 20-hand losing streaks are so frequent in your calculations.
“Probability of 20-hand losing streak in 7,000 trials: 0.001529230036319.”
1 in 654. NO way, Jose! You wont get one such a streak in 10,000 uninterrupted hands!
I do use a different program for calculations. It is based on Warren Weaver’s book. I am not at liberty to reveal the software. It might even be forbidden to name the program here. I will publish only a report for coin tossing and 1000 trials. You can see all the streaks and how many times they occur. You can try for yourself. Toss a good coin (no counterfeit allowed!) 1000 times. Just jot down the outcomes: T, H. You’ll see the results come close to the theory. Repeating 1000-toss runs will get closer to theory.
Code:
Probability p = .5
Number of Trials N = 1000
=============================================================================
Streak Lengths 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 TOTAL
=============================================================================
Winning Streaks W 125 62 31 16 8 4 2 1 0 0 492
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Losing Streaks L 125 62 31 16 8 4 2 1 0 0 492
=============================================================================
Uncounted Elements: 16 ; Distributed as: Win = 8 / Loss = 8 (possible one streak was longer than 8 on either side of the coin.
Great book, Warren Weaver’s “Lady Luck”! No offence, just my honest opinion.
Bookmarks