On: Problems that ruined my world

[rottencupcakes]

There's an obvious intuition that the author seems to be missing with the 'two aces' paradox.

If you have a hand with two aces, you have two chances of getting the "Ace of Spades." Having a hand with two aces doesn't make it any more likely to have "an ace" than having a hand with one ace does.

This pretty much explains the phenomenon.

[Retric → rottencupcakes]

Does that logic somehow change when someone says:

  "I have an Ace."
  (You calculate the probability.)
 "Then they say I have an Ace of harts."
  (You calculate the probability.)

PS: I suspect the actual answer relates to how you talk about your hand in bridge.

[TheSOB88 → rottencupcakes]

Thank you so much! I really need to add "reversing the problem" to my repository of problem-solving techniques, but I just can't seem to find it.