Conditional Probability of drawing balls

probabilitysolution-verification

A bag has $10$ red balls and $12$ blue balls. You draw $6$ times from the bag, without replacement. What is the probability that the first two draws were red given that you drew EXACTLY $2$ red balls?

My attempt:

I am assuming that the problem is equivalent to finding the probability of drawing $4$ blue balls in the last $4$ draws. By this logic, we get

$P($4 blues in 4 draws$) = \frac{12}{20} \cdot \frac{11}{19} \cdot \frac{10}{18} \cdot \frac{9}{17}$

Is this correct or did I make a mistake somewhere? Any assistance is appreciated.

Best Answer

Let $\Gamma$ be the event $RRBBBB$ and $\Delta$ be the event $\{2R,4B\}$.

$\Gamma \cap \Delta = \Gamma$,

So $$P(\Gamma|\Delta)=\frac{P(\Gamma \cap \Delta)}{P(\Delta)}=\frac{P(\Gamma)}{P(\Delta)}$$

$$P(\Gamma) = \frac{10}{22} \frac{9}{21} \frac{12}{20} \frac{11}{19} \frac{10}{18} \frac{9}{17}$$

$$P(\Delta) =\frac{ \pmatrix{10\\2} \pmatrix{12\\4}}{\pmatrix{22\\6}}$$

Simplifying, this gives $$P(\Gamma|\Delta)= \frac{2!4!}{6!}=\frac{1}{15}$$ which is consistent with Graham's answer which is more elegant.

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