Question

Baseball's World Series is a maximum of seven games, with the winner being the first team to win four games. Assume that the Atlanta Braves and the Minnesota Twins are playing in the World Series and that the first two games are to be played in Atlanta, the next three games at the Twins' ballpark, and the last two games, if necessary, back in Atlanta. Taking into account the projected starting pitchers for each game and the home field advantage, the probabilities of Atlanta winning each game are as follows:

Game	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Probability of Win	0.65	0.4	0.45	0.55	0.47	0.42	0.6

a. Set up a spreadsheet simulation model for which whether Atlanta wins or loses each game is a random variable. What is the probability that the Atlanta Braves win the World Series? If required, round your answer to two decimal places.

b. What is the average number of games played regardless of winner? If required, round your answer to one decimal place.

Answer 1

If p is the probability of Atlanta winning a game, then to simulate we use the following steps

• Generate a random number of uniform distribution
• If the random number is less than p, then Atlanta wins the game else Minnesota Twins wins
  • For example if the random number generated for game 1 is 0.66, since 066 is greater than 0.65, MT wins the game

Games 5,6,7 are played only if no team has won 4 games

a) Prepare the following sheet

Columns A to F

Columns G and H

The rest

get this

a)  the probability that the Atlanta Braves win the World Series is 0.47

b) the average number of games played regardless of winner is 5.8