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Clarifying conditional calculations with ‘Jolly Roger’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Roger W. Johnson*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, 501 East St Joseph Street, Rapid City, SD 57701, USA. e-mail: rwjohnso@taz.sdsmt.edu

Extract

The dice game ‘Jolly Roger’ may be played with 5 regular dice or 5 special ‘Jolly Roger’ dice. A ‘Jolly Roger die is a regular die in which the 1 spot is replaced by a skull and crossbones (i.e. replaced by a ‘Jolly Roger’). Play cycles through the players 5 times so that each player has 5 turns in the game. Each turn consists of 3 rolls of the 5 dice. On a particular roll of the 5 dice a player (pirate) can score points (capture cargo) only when some ‘Jolly Rogers’ appear face up. According to Koplow Games (1993):

“For each ‘Jolly Roger’ that appears on a roll of the dice, the player can capture one other die and score its points. If three ‘Jolly Rogers’ are rolled, then only the points on the remaining two dice can be scored. If five ‘Jolly Rogers’ are rolled, no points are scored, as the pirate fleet has scared away all cargo ships.”

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 2001

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References

1. Games, Koplow, Inc., P.O. Box 965, Hull, MA 02045, USA (1993).Google Scholar
2. Rice, John, Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis (2nd edn.), Duxbury Press, Belmont, CA (1995) pp. 137138.Google Scholar