If you examine the standard deck of playing cards above, there are a total of 52 cards because there are 13 for each of the 4 card suit symbols! (13 × 4 = 52)
However, there are 2 extra cards in a pack: the Jokers! Counting them makes 54 total! Jokers are used as wild cards in specific card games. Anyway, on this Web page, we'll be focusing on the probability of picking playing cards that exclude jokers.
The Jacks, Queens & Kings are called face cards. There are 12 face cards, so the probability of picking a face card is 12/52 or in simplest terms, it's 3/13.
The probability of picking a non-face card will of course be 1 - 3/13 = 10/13. (The opposite of a favorable outcome will always be 1 - P(A).)
The probability of picking any specific card in the deck is 1/52; however, if you remove that one, then there'll be 51 cards left! Remove another one & there'll be 50 left, etc. So, the probability that the 2nd card will be the Ace of Diamonds is 1/51, unless that was your 1st card! With any specific card removed from the deck, the probability of picking it again is zero(0), unless you put it back! When you do multiple coin tosses, (or in this case, card picking) multiply seperate probability values to get the probability of a specific outcome.
In some card games like Poker, however, you're allowed to have up to 5 cards in each hand. But in other games, like Blackjack, you start with 2 cards & need to take more until you get a desired amount. You should always consider probability in card games, but be warned, because some card games use 2 or even 3 card decks!
Some examples of card games that use 2 card decks are Spider Solitaire & Red and Black. Arcade solitaire card games often use 3 card decks!
Despite that, however, the probability of picking a card from a specific suit stays exactly the same even with 2 or 3 decks used!
A noticable difference is that with more than 1 card deck, it's possible to get 2 or 3 Queens of the same suit!
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© Derek Cumberbatch