A 5-card poker hand is said to be a full house if it consists of 3 cards of the same denomination and 2 other cards of the same denomination (of course, different from the first denomination). Thus, one kind of full house is three of a kind plus a pair. What is the probability that one is dealt a full house?
I solved this as follows:
Sample space is 52 choose 5
For the first card out of 5 we have 13×4 possible choices (any card);
For second 3 choices (3 different suits of same card);
For third 2 choice (2 different suits of same card);
For fourth we have (13 x 4 – 4);
For fifth we have 3 choices;
thus:
( 13 x 4 x 3 x 2 x (13 x 4 – 4) x 3 ) / (52 choose 5)
The answer is approx : 0.017
While the solution in book :
Where was I wrong in my reasoning?
Thanks
Best Answer
What is wrong in your reasoning is that in your description (first we draw a card, then we draw a card of the same denomination, etc) the order is fixed. That is, you are not considering that the 5 cards of a full house can be drawn in any order.
There are basically two ways to solve the problem:
Combinations. There are $\binom{52}5$ deals. How many of these deals are a full house? First: choose the denomination of the three: 13 possibilities. Then, choose the denomination of the pair: 12 possibilities. Now choose the cards of the three: $\binom{4}3$ possibilities. Now, choose the two other cards: $\binom{4}2$ possibilities.
Then, the probability is $$\frac{13\cdot12\cdot\binom{4}3\binom{4}2}{\binom{52}5}$$
Variations. There are $52\cdot51\cdot50\cdot49\cdot48$ deals. Now, we are considering that two deals are different if the cards were drawn in a different order, so there are much more deals. Namely, $5!=120$ times more. Now you can count your way. The probability is $$120\cdot \frac{52\cdot3\cdot2\cdot48\cdot3}{52\cdot51\cdot50\cdot49\cdot48}$$
You can check that they are, in fact, the same number.
Another way is the following:
Then, the probability of drawing a full house, drawing the three and after the pair is $$p=\frac{52}{52}\frac{3}{51}\frac{2}{50}\frac{48}{49}\frac{3}{48}$$
But since the cards of the full house can be drawn at any order, we must multiply by $120$.