How many ways are there to split a dozen people into $3$ teams , where one team has $2$ people and the other two teams have $5$ people each

combinatoricsprobabilitysolution-verification

Problem $:$

How many ways are there to split a dozen people into $3$ teams , where one team has $2$ people and the other two teams have $5$ people each?

My try, Pick $2$ guys from $12$ guys which gives $12 \choose 2$ , now we have $10$ people left from which two $5$ person teams are to be made..it gives $10 \choose 5$ choices. .Thus we have ${12 \choose 2} \times {10 \choose 5}$ choices to make such three teams. Am I right?

Best Answer

Assuming you mean one team of two people and two teams of five people. Once we have picked the two people who form a first team, we can select five out of ten people to form the second group. However, since we counted each combination twice (putting five people in the second results in the same division as putting them in the third group), we must divide by two. As such, the number of possible combinations equals:

$$\frac{{12 \choose 2} {10 \choose 5}}{2} = \frac{66 \cdot 252}{2} = 8316$$