[BruceZ]

"The way the poster plays he doesn't spin it every time, so it doesn't matter where you stand for 1 bullet in 6 chambers."

true in percentage terms, but again why increase from zero to 16.7% chance of dying by firing? stand last again if you want to live

This case is totally different from the case where it is spun every time. In this case, the person who dies is predetermined by the intial spin. Each person has a 1 in 6 chance no matter where he stands. If you are last, you have a smaller chance of pulling the trigger, but you have the same chance of dying. In fact, if you do pull the trigger you die for sure!


when bozeman said "Why do you assume the game ends
after one person dies?" he was presumably talking about the
5 bullets in 6 chambers scenario

if the game doesn't end then if you go first here you have a 1
in 6 chance of surviving = 16.7%

if you go second then if the first guy shot himself you have a
1 in 5 chance chance of surving = 20% x 83.3% = 16.7%

plus if he didn't shoot himself then you have 0 in 5 chance of surviving = 0%

etc etc

so in percentage terms it doesn't matter where you stand,
you always have a 16.7% chance of surviving

but, again, as you always have an 83.3% chance of dying,
maybe you should put it off as long as you can?

i am tempted to say that you should go first in this particular case, because of the added 100% chance of dying if one in front of you has survived his shot - is this right?

If the game doesn't end until one person is left, then it doesn't matter where you stand. The "winner" is predetermined just as the loser was in the case of one bullet, and each person has a 1 in 6 chance of surviving by getting the blank chamber.


"For 6 bullets in 20 chambers, even if you don't spin it every time, you don't want to be 1st or 2nd if you want to live since then 4 chambers kill you, but only 3 chambers kill everyone else."

i don't follow this - could you explain please? thanks

Actually my remarks apply to 1 bullet in 20 chambers, assuming the gun keeps getting passed around the circle until someone dies. In that case, the first two guys have 4 chambers that can kill them (1,7,13,19 for first person) while the other 4 guys only have 3 chambers that can kill them. For 6 bullets in 20 chambers, I made a spreadsheet to get the probabilites. It is best to be last:

probabilities of dying:

1: 0.33374613
2: 0.241640867
3: 0.171594427
4: 0.119195046
5: 0.080727554
6: 0.053095975