Okay so this question reminded me of one my brother asked me a while back about the hit day-time novelty-worn-off-now snoozathon Deal or no deal.
For the uninitiated:
In playing deal or no deal, the player is presented with one of 22 boxes (randomly selected) each containing different sums of money, he then asks in turn for each of the 21 remaining boxes to be opened, occasionally receiving an offer (from a wholly unconvincing 'banker' figure) for the mystery amount in his box.
If he rejects all of the offers along the way, the player is allowed to work his way through several (for some unfathomable reason, emotionally charged) box openings until there remain only two unopened boxes: one of which is his own, the other not. He is then given a choice to stick or switch (take the contents of his own box or the other), something he then agonises pointlessly over for the next 10 minutes.
Monty hall
[If you have not seen the monty hall 'paradox' check out this wikipedia link and prepare to be baffled, then enlightened, then disappointed that the whole thing is so trivial. After which feel free to read on.]
There is a certain similarity, you will agree, between the situation a deal or no deal player finds himself in having rejected all offers and the dilemma of Monty's contestant in the classic problem: several 'bad choices' have been eliminated and he is left with a choice between a better and worse choice with no way of knowing between them.
So???
Question: The solution to the monty hall problem is that it is, in fact, better to switch- does the same apply here? Does this depend upon the money in the boxes? Should every player opt for 'switch', cutting the 10 minutes of agonising away???