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by dllthomas 4142 days ago
Your understanding does not jive with my simulation. Write the simulation. It is certainly possible that my simulation is in error, but as I said it surprised me so I looked closely for error, and I have several times heard people report independently reaching the same conclusion on writing their own simulations and never (yet?) the other.
2 comments

Thought even more on this. Did not get a chance to run a simulation, but thought of it while driving around.

It finally jives with me that your odds at swap time are only 50%. Seems kind of obvious when you think of it as random events and you are at the end with it definitely behind one of two doors. Either door is clearly as likely. Now, your odds of getting to this point are vanishingly slim, the more doors there are. Which makes sense.

I think my intuitive block comes in in that your odds of winning the game are not increased in this scenario at all. Which, I knew. I think I even stated it at some point. Still a hard block to get around.

I'll try to write up a simulation this weekend. I'm not entirely sure where we are disagreeing, though. I'm not saying that you have 1/2 chance of winning the game. Only if you have the chance to swap, you win half of the time if you do. That seems to be what you said in a sibling thread.