Schnapsen Log Archives

Columns for April, 2013

Rags and Riches

Martin Tompa
April 13, 2013

You are playing your favorite game against your favorite buddy Peter in your favorite hangout, the Café Abeles. You’ve recouped some of your losses, coming from a depressing game point score of 1:6 a few deals earlier to your present score of 1:2. Can you possibly continue making the right decisions and go on to win this close game?…

Homework on Expected Values

Martin Tompa
April 26, 2013

For regular readers of this column, I apologize for the fact that I have been producing columns at a slower rate recently. The slow rate is probably going to continue for the next few months. I haven’t been idle on the Schnapsen front, however. I am busy teaching a course on Probability and Statistics, and am using Schnapsen as a running example of applications of Probability. It’s been fun teaching Schnapsen to a large group of students who had never encountered it before.

In the course, we are just up to the topic of expected value now, so it seems appropriate to give them a homework exercise that involves expected game points. Today’s column is that homework exercise. This means that I won’t be posting my analysis until one week from now, when the homework will be due.

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