4 ms·

This sounds like a variant of the two envelope problem: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_envelopes_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_envelopes_prob

• murbard2 10y ago
  It isn't. There's a clear, well defined answer.
  • twic 10y ago
    I'm just a programmer, but this seems really easy to me. What am I missing?
    • SonOfLilit 10y ago
      See my post. As a mathematician, maybe you're missing some interesting theory of why if the opponent has an average of 0.625 and you got 0.55 you should redraw. However, as a programmer, the first thing you're missing is running a quick Monte Carlo simulation and seeing whether your idea actually wins :-)
• simias 10y ago
  But here you know the content of the "envelope" before you decide whether to switch or not. If the adversary was only allowed one pick I guess I'd only re-draw if I had less than 0.5 since statistically you'd be more likely to have a greater number than a weaker one. I'm not sure what the maths are but a simple implementation gave me an average value of about 0.625 using this strategy, so definitely an improvement over a single pick. But I have the feeling that since the adversary can chose the same strategy maybe you should be a little more aggressive and redraw if you are at 0.5? But then the adversary would do the same so I guess the solution would eventually converge to a value a little above 0.6? That'd be my guess at least.