Monday, June 25, 2012

Tennis, anyone?


It's Wimbledon time, or the best time of year for tennis.  Wimbledon is the king of kings when it comes to tennis tournaments.  I'm completely in the tennis spirit.

So, after selling some items on eBay and browsing the DACardWorld clearance pages, I bought, in addition to my Gint-A-Cuffs box and other items, two cases of these 2007 Ace Authentic Straight Sets retail boxes.

That's right, I went crazy and bought 2 cases.

Each case has 20 blasters, each with 7 packs (4 cards per pack, 1 Material card per box).  I also qualified for some DACardWorld free items, and opted for 6 more boxes.  All together, I will have 46 boxes.

Each box has 4x7=28 cards plus one Material card.  Of the 28 cards, one will be a bronze parallel and one will be an insert.  That leaves 26 base cards.  For 46 boxes, I will end up with 1,196 base cards.  The base set consists of just 50 cards.  


Here's where we get down and nerdy.  I wrote a code that randomly filled 1,196 spots with a number from 1 to 50.  That would simulate a completely random collation of cards.  I then searched the random array to see how many sets of 1-50 I came up with.  I then repeated the process 10,000 times. 



The above histogram shows that the number of sets that occurred most often was 14.  The average value was 13.7.  Assuming a normal distribution (yes, I know this isn't quite a normal distribution), and considering 3 standard deviations, I can assume that there is a 99.7% chance that the number of complete sets I will receive is between 8 and 19.


Consider yourself lucky if you have stuck with this post to this point.  I'm going to give you a chance to win a complete set, and maybe something else.

All you have to do is guess the answers to these 5 questions:

How many complete sets will I get?
What card will I get the most of (checklist here)?
How many of that card will I get?
Who will win the Men's Wimbledon tournament this year (draw here)?
Who will win the Women's Wimbledon tournament this year (draw here)?


Who ever gets the most correct answers wins.  Of course, if you don't win, we can always work a deal for a set, as I will likely have several to trade.  You have until Wednesday night at 5:01 pm to enter. 

17 comments:

Josh D. said...

Nice graph! I don't know the distribution...but I know it's not Poisson!

13 complete sets.
Caroline Wozniacki
26
Djokovic
Sharapova (yes, I know...not very creative)

The Lost Collector said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Lost Collector said...

14 complete sets.
James Blake
24
Feddy
Sharapova

Doc said...

Why not, just for fun :)

10 sets
Sharapova
16
Djokovic
Sharapova

Simons44 said...

14 complete sets
Vera Zvonareva
27
Novak Djokovic
Victoria Azarenka

hiflew said...

15 complete sets
Boris Pashanski
23
Roger Federer
Samantha Stosur

Nachos Grande said...

How many complete sets will I get? 12
What card will I get the most of (checklist here)? 32 - Richard Gasquet
How many of that card will I get? 17
Who will win the Men's Wimbledon tournament this year (draw here)? Djokovic
Who will win the Women's Wimbledon tournament this year (draw here)? Sharapova

Anonymous said...

16 complete sets
David Nalbandian
19
Andy Murray
Sharapova

Hackenbush said...

14 sets
Marion Bartoli
22
Djokovic
Sharapova

Justin McLeod said...

13 complete sets
James Blake
28
Djokovic
Sharapova

Play at the Plate said...

Sets: 11 Complete Sets
Card with the most appearances 23 - Nicole Vaidisova (cutie)
Number of times: 27
Winner men: Djokovic
Winner women: Victoria Azarenka

night owl said...

Why'd you have to sully the good game of tennis with that painful number stuff?

9 complete sets
Richard Gasquet
14 of Mr. Gasquet
Djokovic
Radwanska

Love tennis cards! There needs to be more!

Card Anathema said...

18 complete sets
Dinara Safina
22
Nadal
Wozniacki

Nick said...

15 complete sets
Andy Roddick
36
Djokovic
Sharapova

Thanks!

Greg Zakwin said...

13 complete sets
Rafael Nadal
37 Nadals
Federer
Sharapova

Dawgbones said...

How many complete sets will I get?
17, naturally

What card will I get the most of?
7 - Anna Kournikova, again, naturally

How many of that card will I get?
I'm going to say you are low, and go with 30.

Who will win the Men's Wimbledon tournament this year?
Robin Haase

Who will win the Women's Wimbledon tournament this year?
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

Wilson said...

Well I ran my own simulation, with some pressure to be a little better than random, and came up with this:

Complete Sets: 16
Most of card: #37 Kristian Pless
How many: 32
Men's Winner: Rafael Nadal
Women's Winner: Maria Sharapova