Joint distribution of two random variables when a fair dice is rolled twice

probabilityprobability distributionsrandom variables

I am reading on joint probability distribution of random variables and working through the following example.

Roll a die twice and Let X be the minimum value of both rolls and Y the maximum.

The joint distribution is given as follows:

For $k, l = 1, 2….6 $,

$$
\Bbb{P}(X = k, \,Y = l) =
\begin{cases}
0, \, \text{ if } k > l \\
\frac{1}{36}, \text{ if } k = l \\
\frac{1}{18}, \text{ if } k < l
\end{cases}
$$

I understand the first and the second case ($ k > l \text{ & } k = l $) but I'm having a hard time intuitively understanding the third case. For example $\Bbb{P}(X = 1, Y = 2)$ should be $\frac{1}{36} $ as the pair (1, 2) occurs only once in the sample space $\Omega = \{1,…,6\}^2 $ . So why is it beign counted twice and the probability set to $\frac{1}{18}$ ?

Best Answer

Here is a tabular representation of your joint pmf

enter image description here

I hope this will clarify the situation

Example: in the cell $(X;Y)=(1;2)$ that means: minimun die's value=1 and maximum die's value=2

That is $(D_1;D_2)=(1;2)$ or $(D_1;D_2)=(2;1)$