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tossing a coin

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg130935] tossing a coin
• From: michael partensky <partensky at gmail.com>
• Date: Sun, 26 May 2013 05:08:01 -0400 (EDT)
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Hi everybody!
Here is a classical problem:

A and B take turns flipping a coin. H and T designate "heads" and "tails"
respectively.
Each of them chooses a pattern. Say, A picks HHTT and B picks HTHT (the
length of the fragment may vary). One wins if his pattern appears before
the pattern of his opponent.

For any two patterns we have to find the answer *experimentally (by
producing many random sequences and computing the frequencies of wins)*.
What would be the most elegant way of detecting the first appearance of a
pattern ?

Thanks,
Michael Partenskii

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